Astro Communities on Social

This week the vibe is very Neptunian, so I thought I'd share some hashtag#socialintelligence insights around what's happening with the hashtag#astrology community right now.

Yeah, I know, Mercury is retrograde AND it's a Friday (terrible time to post on LinkedIn) but to hell with it.

This is for you if you're interested in:

✶ How the same community shows up on different social platforms
✶ Astrology in general
✶ How the current spiritual vibe shift is impacting *looks around* all of this

And probably not for you if you just want to be dismissive or argue about a framework.

Let me know if you have thoughts/builds/comment or you'd like to nerd out about cosmology.

Thanks pals!

Transcript

1. WHICH WHICH PLATFORMS PLATFORMS DOES THE DOES THE ASTROLOGY ASTROLOGY COMMUNITY COMMUNITY CALL HOME ? CALL HOME ?
2. Social media has changed; it’s fragmenting, and we’re seeing clear reasons beyond the algorithm, for using different channels again. I’m not saying that the great flattening and samification is over, but we’re starting to see signals that the social web is naturally segmenting again. For those who are unaware, the astrology is currently bonkers, with both Venus and Mercury retrograde during Eclipse Season. To track the more mainstream astrology community I’m looking at uses of Mercury Retrograde. For the more niche astro community I’m tracking Venus Retrograde across Twitter/X, TikTok Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and Reddit over the last month, globally.
3. Venus Mercury 0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000 The first surprise is that there are more mentions of Venus than Mercury. This is the first indicator that mainstream astrology community now has a much deeper understanding of the practice.
4. Twitter TikTok Instagram Threads Bsky Reddit 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 Twitter TikTok Instagram Threads Bsky Reddit 0 20000 40000 60000 80000 Mercury Retrograde Venus Retrograde
5. Twitter still hosts the majority of the posts around these topics (but none of the engagement) which feels.. odd. TikTok has a higher amount of posts around both Mercury and Venus retrograde, this is big news as Instagram has been the defacto home of ‘visual’ astrology content since forever. Instagram having a smaller amount of content around these two topics specifically indicates that the understanding of astrology on Insta is probably more surface than other platforms. Threads and Bluesky are not far behind Insta in terms of volume of posts Reddit still isn’t all that bothered about astrology
6. The US dominates both conversations, and is also where the Venus retrograde chasm opens up. Most of the other countries have a more similar share of voice for Mercury and Venus retrograde. This shows us that not only is astrology more popular in the US than other territories, but that also the US astro community have a deeper knowledge of astrology.
7. Female 67.3% Male 32.7% Female 72.4% Male 27.6% The community for both topics is still largely female identifying, but less so than we’ve seen in previous analysis. We’re looking at a broad 70/30 female to male spilt across both categories. Is this an early signal that more male identifying people are embracing astrology?
8. TikTok hashtags that overlapped with #venusretrograde over the last 2 weeks show strong ties with the #witchtok #tarot and #spirituality communities on the platform.
9. Running a top-line language analysis of the most commonly used words and phrases on each channel shows that broadly: TikTok is where the astrology nerds are, they are talking specific transits and relational astrology over here. Instagram is where the popular and life coaching side of astrology is most prevalent. Bluesky and Threads are serving a similar purpose and this tends to be people explaining/reflecting current events through an astrological lens. Twitter is a mash up of all the other platforms, but did have more negative/doom mongering keywords than other platforms.
10. COOL STATS BRO, COOL STATS BRO, WHY SHOULD WHY SHOULD I CARE? I CARE?
11. Because even if astrology's not for you, it’s likely a big chunk of your audience is interested in it: #Astrology has almost 112 BILLION VIEWS on TikTok. Last month 122.8K videos were posted to TikTok using the hashtag, an increase of 43% month on month. NEXTATLAS predict Astrology will steadily grow 15% over the next year.
12. Google data from the last half decade shows astrology trending up in a stable way, and that users are becoming more informed, searching instead for their birth charts, apps and calculators over astrology signs and horoscopes.
13. While I am definitely not recommending your brand starts sharing astrology meme content (there’s enough bad brand astro content in the world to last a life time) what I am suggesting, is that a) The more you can understand about your consumers and their worldviews, the better placed you are to create content/products that resonate with them, and that b) The shift that we’re seeing globally of a resurgence of interest in astrology, folklore, and ancestral wisdom can tell us a lot about what people want and where we’re heading.
14. As usual, if you want to talk trends, using social data for foresight or strategy, or how social data can be turned into cultural intelligence, then send me a DM.