Pauls Valley, OK, Pauls Valley Democrat

Community News Network

December 4, 2012

5 Twitter tips for the Pope

(Continued)

3. Interact, but don't flame

Responding or retweeting followers can help give them the sense that there's a real person behind the handle. Newark Mayor Cory Booker is the master of using Twitter to communicate directly with constituents on issues as small as stray pitbulls. That level of engagement probably isn't possible for a global figure like Benedict, but it wouldn't hurt to periodically engage directly with the flock.

What he should be careful to avoid is getting into the kind of angry flame wars carried out in recent months by the presidents of Rwanda, Estonia and Azerbaijan. It's not very becoming of the Holy See to start arguments over politics or points of doctrine with obnoxious journalists.

4. Don't sweat the parodies

The Pope is a major world figure. He's going to be mocked on Twitter. He should handle it like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, not like The New York Times.

5. Proofread

Trusting others to do one's tweeting, as Benedict appears to be doing, can be risky. Ban Ki-moon likely wasn't too thrilled when the U.N.'s official feed tweeted out his support for a "1-state solution" last week." God's Emissary on Earth should probably double-check to make sure his staff are getting the wording right in all eight languages.

---

Keating is an associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Text Only
Community News Network
Business Marquee

e-Edition
  • How You Want It When You Want It Today's Pauls Valley Democrat

    Now you can view and download the Democrat right to your desktop on the day the paper is published. Click here to get more information on the Democrat's e-Edition.

     

    CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE E-EDITION SITE

     

    ATTENTION CURRENT DEMOCRAT SUBSCRIBERS TO START an e-EDITION

    e-mail request to sjohnson@pvdemocrat.com

    April 20, 2011 1 Photo 1 Link

AP Video
Raw: Massive Dust Storm Covers Phoenix 12-hour Cease-fire in Gaza Fighting Begins Raw: Bolivian Dancers Attempt to Break Record Raw: Israel, Palestine Supporters Rally in US Raw: Palestinians and Israeli Soldiers Clash Raw: Air Algerie Flight 5017 Wreckage Virginia Governor Tours Tornado Aftermath Judge Faces Heat Over Offer to Help Migrant Kids Kerry: No Deal Yet on 7-Day Gaza Truce Kangaroo Goes Missing in Oklahoma More M17 Bodies Return, Sanctions on Russia Grow Gaza Residents Mourn Dead Amid Airstrikes Raw: Deadly Tornado Hits Virginia Campground Ohio State Marching Band Chief Fired After Probe Raw: Big Rig Stuck in Illinois Swamp Cumberbatch Brings 'Penguins' to Comic-Con Raw: Air Algerie Crash Site in Mali Power to Be Restored After Wash. Wildfire Crashed Air Algerie Plane Found in Mali Israel Mulls Ceasefire Amid Gaza Offensive
Stocks
Facebook
http://www.paulsvalleydailydemocrat.com/community-news-network/x942842488/5-Twitter-tips-for-the-Pope?zc_p=1
www.paulsvalleydailydemocrat.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2014-23
81458
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:EOMAWHRBFN3FQ7ZGTHS4UMFCP5WLQ3BO
<urn:uuid:ba58cacb-a674-4132-bd94-6fbefbd53bb2>
2014-07-26T19:22:14Z
54.88.176.104
sha1:PS4UPK45XCW7ULBNKTRJKWCPKS3EFS3J
<urn:uuid:8765c475-22d6-430f-adb9-3fe5b7792f42>
http://www.paulsvalleydailydemocrat.com/community-news-network/x942842488/5-Twitter-tips-for-the-Pope?zc_p=1
response
<urn:uuid:de0c0fa4-df04-4da9-9f48-612d6ecb022c>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-33-131-23.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2014-23
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for July 2014
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf