Filipinos prepared for the Pope’s visit weeks before he was scheduled to arrive. The President declared a holiday. The PNP bought a lot of adult diapers.  Pope merchandise —books, bags, shirts—flew off the shelves.

 

While the event was covered by every major media outlet, it also unfolded in people’s personal stories, shared on their social media.  AllFamous Digital conducted a Radian6 scan to determine how the event unfolded across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The results are quite interesting.

 

A huge social media presence

 

During the period covered by the scan, from January 8 to 21, over 690,389 mentions of the event were recorded. Multiple keywords were monitored, including #BlessedByThePope as well as the official government-sanctioned hashtags #PopeFrancisPH,  #PapalVisitPH, and #MercyAndCompassion.

 

The scan recorded three significant peaks in the number of mentions of the Pope and/or his visit. These were on January 15 (152,219), January 16 (127,001), and January 18 (162,288). These peaks coincided with significant markers during the papal visit = the Pope’s arrival, his visit to Malacanang Palace and the Encounter with The Families event at SM Mall of Asia Arena, and the record-setting papal mass at the Quirino Grandstand. Interestingly enough, the Pope’s visit to Leyte – which was the main agenda for this Papal visit – did not mark a surge in social media mentions. This could be seen as evidence that social media usage is significantly higher in Metro Manila. Mentions progressively dropped from January 19—the day of the Pope’s departure—onwards.

 

 

The women had been heard

 

At the massive gathering for the youth held at the University of Sto. Tomas last January 18, Pope Francis gave a special message to women — “Women have so much to tell us in this society. Women are capable of seeing things from a different angle.” The results of the social media scan gave more gravity to the Pope’s message. The results showed that an overwhelming majority of mentions pertaining to the event was generated by females.

 

The graph shows that 197,294 women shared and posted various Pope related messages on social media, compared to only 89,636 men. The results also showed that among women, it is the 25 to 34 age demographic that shared the most posts, with 4,786 female users from that age bracket posting messages about Pope Francis online. The second largest demographic among females is the 21 to 24 age group with 2,579 recorded posts. The two demographic groups that had the least amount of posts were women over 65 years old and the 18-to-20 bracket.

 

 

Filipinos’ sentiments towards the visit

 

It comes as no surprise that the results on a sentiment scan on social media regarding the Papal visit has been overwhelmingly positive – with 72,218 social media mentions qualified as “positive” compared to 10,194 negative mentions. The exhaustive coverage of the visit has not left Filipinos with “pope fatigue” – in fact, positive mentions continued to be consistent for the duration of the Pope’s stay, which says a lot about both the Pope’s effect on Filipinos’ and the reception the Pope received from this Catholic-majority country. 

 

 

Frequently-used words

 

Radian6 generated a word cloud to show the keywords used the most during the period of the scan. It showed that the #popefrancisph hashtag dominated social media above all others. Another prominent hashtag was #papalvisitph. Other prominent keywords that appeared on the word cloud included “papal”, “love”, francis”, “pope”, “Filipinos”, “photos”, and “sing”. Among non-hashtag keywords, it is notable that “timeline” came to prominence. This shows that netizens are closely following the Pope’s schedule throughout his stay and also following the events that were being held in his honor. This is an indication of the kind of investment of time and attention social media users allocated for this event.

 

The Pope’s visit clearly touched millions of people, who shared their emotions and opinions on their social media. The numbers speak for themselves, giving us a glimpse of the impact his visit had on the country. — TJD, GMA News
 

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ALLFAMOUS Digital provides social services to some of the biggest brands and companies in the Philippines and other markets in Asia Pacific. The agency prides itself on being solutions focused, fast paced and at the forefront of social analytics.

 

Mel Panabi is the Senior Content Manager and Digital Team Leader at AllFamous Digital. He is a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy and has a mean fragrance collection. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
 

Erica Sanidad is a Social Media Specialist for AllFamous Digital. She likes reading and collecting graphic novels and loves to paint during her spare time. Follow her on LinkedIn and Instagram.