2020 was the year that much of the world stayed at home. As disruptive as the transition has been, something that has kept us going is seeing so many professionals in our wellness community rise up and adapt their offerings to take them online.
Importantly, they have received a response that validates this new approach, too. The pandemic threw health and wellness out of balance for many people, which lead to an uptake in virtual fitness classes, people buying more health products online, and googling “meditation,” for example.
A greater consciousness in this respect was, and continues to be, a mechanism for coping in the world that we are currently navigating.
As a sign of the times, it is no surprise to see these concepts reflected in the top wellness and retreat related searches and hashtags for the year.
To show you what the world was searching for in 2020, we have drawn insights from Google Trends and Instagram searches.
The top Google searches in the wellness and retreat space will give you an idea of the keywords people are using in the search engine. This could be to ask questions, seek out information, look up products or services, find inspiration, and more.
The top wellness and retreat hashtags will give you the same information but for behavior on social media.
If you know what these are, you can shape your content marketing and social media strategies to attract your ideal clients in 2021.
The terms can be purposed as blog content for your website and hashtags on your social channels. If you carry out this approach correctly, it will help people find you online.
There is no point in creating great content for your online platforms if you don’t get it in front of your audience.
We have structured this by examining the trends around specific search terms.
The heading indicates the main search term, while the bullet points underneath are related topics or queries that either reached breakout status or exploded when compared with the previous year.
The top wellness search terms for retreats show what types of retreats people were interested in during the pandemic. A central theme to this was holistic health, with mental health, nutrition, and healing seeing elevated search.
People were looking for inspiration online to get their travel fix during the lockdown. In particular, spiritual retreats were of interest.
From these searches, we can see that there was a surge in interest in yoga teacher training, as well as in video and classes on demand. Curiosity shot up in March 2020, around the time when most of the world went into lockdown.
Interest in this was highest towards the end of March 2020, although it saw consistent search volumes throughout the year.
These insights provide an idea of what areas of mindfulness mattered to people most during the pandemic. Overall, the well being of family units and self-care were priorities.
Breathwork can relieve stress, improve sleep, and raise emotional well being. During a pandemic when so many things felt overwhelming, it is not surprising that this was one of the top wellness search terms on Google.
Instagram is one of the most popular platforms for health and wellness related content.
Retreat leaders and wellness professionals can use their stories, images, and hashtags to build relationships with their audience, as well as to attract new followers. Apply them right, and you can establish your space in the industry.
A bonus here is that it is possible to post content simultaneously on Instagram and Facebook, so anything you share can reach and be searchable for both audiences.
Unfortunately, though, unless you use a paid social media management tool to monitor performance on IG, it is not possible to get insights into hashtag searches by date. Without one, you can’t track how long the terms have been trending.
Outside of Instagram and Facebook, hashtags are also visible on Twitter and Pinterest, which means you can tag content on these platforms as well.
In our list below, we have grouped some popular hashtags from the highest to the lowest number of posts under different categories. Naturally, the higher the number, the more difficult it will be for your content to be seen, although they can be a source of inspiration.
On the other hand, the lower it is, the better chance your post will stand out from the rest, although there are probably lower search volumes then too.
#selfcare (41.3M posts)
#wellnesswednesday (1.3M posts)
#meditationpractice (444K posts)
#meditationspace (433K posts)
#mindfulnessquotes (161K posts)
#mindfulnessmovement (11K posts)
#onlinewellness (5K+ posts)
#yoga (92M posts)
#namaste (20.7M posts)
#yogaeverydamnday (18.8M posts)
#yogalife (12.2M posts)
#asana (4.6M posts)
#yogamom (2.5M posts)
#yogaathome (1M posts)
#yogamotivation (903K posts)
#homepractice (407K posts)
#yogapracticedaily (80.6K posts)
#yogateacher (7.3M posts)
#wellnesscoach (2.1M posts)
#yogateachertraining (977K posts)
#onlineyogaclasses (497K posts)
#yogaworkshop (304K posts)
#freeyoga (182K posts)
#zoomyoga (134K posts)
#liveyoga (100K+ posts)
#kidsyogateacher (89.7K posts)
#livestreamyoga (32.9K posts)
#wellnessretreat (238K posts)
#meditationretreat (112K posts)
#virtualretreat (12.7K posts)
#yogaretreatcenter (1K+ posts)
Our online and social media search habits in 2020 were essentially a reflection of the realities of living through a pandemic. . Although we are not yet over the hill, you can use the top wellness search terms and retreat hashtags to shape how you have conversations with clients this year.
In a few years, it will be interesting to look back on the year the Coronavirus impacted us globally and changed our ways of thinking. There are some lessons to learn, including the shift to a more holistic awareness of self. We can only hope that this positive transition continues forward as we begin to travel once again.