Brandwatch Bulletin #05: Mind, Body, and Social

Self-care in a pandemic.

21 September 2020

Happy Monday! Today we’re checking out three trends relating to wellness that we’ve seen rise since the beginning of the year.

Don’t miss out on any future Brandwatch Bulletins. Click below to subscribe.

Lockdown propels yoga, meditation, and mindfulness conversation

Earlier in the year we learned that mentions of meditation, mindfulness, and yoga increased during lockdown. And, checking in on the conversation more recently, we found that mentions have continued to soar on social media.

Using our Consumer Research platform, we looked at English-language mentions of meditation, mindfulness, and yoga as well as hashtags and related apps.

Between March and August 2020, mentions of all three activities were up 43% compared to the six months prior.

In the last six months, mentions of yoga and related apps jumped 46% compared to the same period before. With both the highest number of mentions and the highest percentage change, it’s the most popular activity we looked at.

Meanwhile, mentions of mediation and mindfulness were up 45% and 37% respectively in the last six months compared to the six months prior – significant jumps for both activities.

What were people talking about?

“Love” and “life” (18m and 15m mentions, respectively) were the top-used keywords in relation to the activities we looked at from January 2019 to August 31 2020. People discussed why they loved their chosen activity and how they had incorporated it into their daily lives.

In a similar vein, we spotted 14m mentions about “time” in the same period. People discussed how they wished they had taken more time to do these activities, or that they are worth spending time on. We also found 10m mentions of “fitness” and “mind” respectively.

For some, lockdown presented the perfect opportunity to try new activities or reconnect with those they didn’t have time for previously.

There are plenty of apps for that!

Using our Consumer Research platform, we also found that consumers have been on the hunt for apps to help them start or progress with their chosen activity.

From January 2019 to August 2020, we found 596k mentions of yoga, mediation, and mindfulness apps. These mentions included recommendations as well as those looking for new apps to try.

Mentions of these apps jumped during lockdown. From March to August 2020 we found 202k mentions – an increase of 31% in comparison to the six months prior.

Google Trends search interest data echoed our social data findings. Both meditation and yoga apps saw enormous interest during lockdown – the highest levels we found in our search, which dated back to 2010.

The year of self-care

Many consumers have adopted yoga, mindfulness, and meditation into their lifestyles this year, both because they have more time and to help keep their minds and bodies healthy. These findings chime with our recent research that found people are becoming more body positive and focusing on self-care in 2020.

The demand for apps is particularly interesting. While meditation and yoga are arguably pretty low tech, and there is plenty of free content out there to help get people started, there is a clear need for trusted, app-based material. The market is busy, but there is no shortage of people getting into self-care in 2020 and plenty of opportunity for wellness brands.

Webinar: Effective insights in turbulent times

Join us this week as we explain how you can find the valuable insights you need during these unpredictable times. With tips and advice from the experts, this isn’t one to miss.

Get signed up.

Thanks for reading

That’s it for today. If you’d like to read more of our bulletins, subscribe here.

Stay safe,

Brandwatch React

Update subscription preferences

Unsubscribe