Results: Pope Francis gains 1 million Instagram followers in under 12 hours

Pope Francis hit one million Instagram followers within 12 hours of launching his account. Pope Francis' new account was christened on Saturday with a photo of him kneeling in prayer. The accompanying message said "pray for me" in 9 languages. It was not a selfie. His new account broke a record for getting one million followers -- the previous record was 24 hours held by David Beckham. The Pope's Instagram handle is "Franciscus." While the account will be separate from the official Vatican account, it will be maintained by members of the Vatican -- his Twitter account is also maintained by other people. News of the Pope's plans to join Instagram broke Thursday and came just weeks after his meeting with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom. During their meeting in late February, the two discussed "the power of images to unite people across different cultures and languages." They also talked about the possibility that the Pope would join the image-based social media platform, according to a spokesperson from Instagram. Systrom was on hand when the Pope's first Instagram photo went live.