Vatican's Facebook Strategy Proves Social Media is Completely Mainstream

This month I opened my computer to find a story that made me throw my hands up and declare "game over." The Vatican's Office of Social Media has launched a Facebook page for Pope John Paul II. The Vatican has an Office of Social Media? Who knew?

In early March, Monsignor Paul Tighe told the Associated Press "What we found is that Facebook doesn't just share information, it creates community. People begin talking to each other and sharing ideas." This is The Vatican talking about people sharing ideas. The story should be shaking a few corporate and marketing trees this week all over the world.

Plenty of corporate and brand leaders have no interest in their consumers sharing ideas. These "leaders" are under the false impression that the consumers are "theirs." These leaders think of brand conversations as a one-way street. The brand sends messages through radio, TV and print. The brand talks, consumers listen and act. Unfortunately for these dinosaurs the truth is, the consumer owns the brand and the days of one-way brand communication are dead.

In the past year, I was stunned as I heard the VP of Marketing for a Fortune 500 communications company tell me she was not even going to bother including social media as part of the mix for a massive B2B sales effort. She's afraid and she's not alone. Most marketing executives want stability. They desire a clear and stable path - neither such reality exists in the social space. The social platforms and campaigns that live within them are rapidly evolving. The path is never really clear or safe because the users (stakeholders) are in control.

The bottom line is this: If a dead Pope has a Facebook page established by the slowest moving institution in world, be assured that social media is no longer a trend. If The Vatican has an Office of Social Media what does that say about companies that do not? I can say it in two words: Game Over.