Pope Francis can now be reached via another social media platform and this time it's Instagram.
Under the user handle "@Franciscus", Pope Francis' Instagram has amassed over 1.5 million followers and counting since joining the filtered image sharing service on Saturday.
As of this writing, Pope Francis has five posts, 1.5 million followers, and is currently following no one else back. Of those five posts on the Pope's Instagram, three are photos of himself. We wouldn't call them selfies, however.
The other posts include a photo showing Pope Francis' holding onto palm leaves, his ring finger wearing a Papal ring; the remaining post is a slightly blurry video of Pope Francis sending a message of mercy to his followers.
The Pope's entry into Instagram and his impressive following have set a new record for the social media platform. The Pope reached one million followers in just 12 hours, dethroning previous record holder David Beckham, whose account took 24 hours to reach one million followers.
On his debut post, Pope Francis has since gained over 256,000 "Likes" and more than 30,000 comments in languages from all over the world. His other accounts over other social media services such as Twitter reveal the same story.
On Twitter, Pope Francis has a mighty fan base of nearly nine million followers. Interestingly enough, the Pope also took to Twitter to announce his plans to join Instagram.
I am beginning a new journey, on Instagram, to walk with you along the path of mercy and the tenderness of God.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) March 19, 2016
His Instagram account, however, will be officially handled by the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications. Nonetheless, it was none other than Instagram's founder and chief executive, Kevin System, who met with the Pope and posted a picture shaking hands with the man in white.
The post was also shared by Instagram's official account and, on top of that, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook (which bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012) also gave the Pope a warm welcome in a post over his own personal Facebook page.
Combined, both Facebook's and Instagram's founders certainly helped the Pope reach a much wider audience on the image sharing social media platform.
