Pope Francis has set a new record on Instagram by gaining 1 million followers under twelve hours!!! The record was previously held by footballer, David Beckham, who earned the same amount of followers in 24 hours. The Pope made the announcement to join Instagram on Thursday, March 17, 2016, a few weeks after his meeting with Kevin Systrom, the CEO of Instagram.
Systrom was also on hand to lend his support, both technical and friendly to the Pope. The Instagram boss made a post expressing his excitement as the Catholic head joined the social media platform.
“Watching Pope Francis post his first photo to Instagram today was an incredible moment.”
“@Franciscus, welcome to the Instagram community! Your messages of humility, compassion and mercy will leave a lasting mark.”
The Pope’s Instagram handle will be managed by members of the Vatican, just like his Twitter profile which already has 8.89m followers. Ad at the time of this post, the pontiff currently has 1.5m followers on Instagram