Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

A little-known fact is that Pope Francis has a couple of helping hands on social media: a pair of American undergraduate interns from Villanova University, a Catholic school in Pennsylvania.

 

One of those interns is Sean Hudgins, a communications major with a focus in public relations. Hudgins, along with Danielle McMonagle, update the News.Va English language Facebook page as well as monitor Twitter for fake Francis accounts.

"Day to day we're pretty much focusing on the News.Va English Facebook page, which is a page run by the Vatican News that basically gets the word out to those that 'Like' it and those that are interested in what's happening in Vatican City," Hudgins told Mashable. "We also monitor Twitter activity so we're on the lookout for impostor accounts, things like that, because there's the risk — I know with the tweet that happened the other night — almost immediately a bunch of fake Pope Francis accounts were made. We watch for things like that."

Hudgins hasn't yet written any copy or tweeted from the @Pontifex account, but he said that might be "something we're going to be doing later as Pope Francis gets a little more assimilated into the environment." He also confirmed the reactivation of @Pontifex means Francis will indeed be a tweeting Pope....