Pope Francis surpasses 22 million Twitter followers

Vatican City, Jul 15: Pope Francis surpassed 22 million Twitter followers today on his multiple accounts, joining the ranks of tech-savvy entertainers and world leaders who command tens of millions of eyeballs on social media.

According to the site Il Sismografo, the pope pulled in 29,000 new followers each day during his recent eight-day trip to South America, versus his already impressive average of 20,000.

Of the nine accounts in languages such as French and German, his Spanish language account is the most popular -- with just over nine million followers -- while the English account comes in second with around 6.5 million followers. A Vatican office writes the tweets -- usually quotes from his speeches and homilies -- with the pope's approval.

Despite the uptick in followers, the pope still has a long way to go to catch up with other world leaders like US President Barack Obama, who has over 60 million followers. Francis is also well behind American entertainer Katy Perry, who has the world's most Twitter followers, with about 72.5 million.

AFP