Planning
Prior to conducting our online research, our group has divided keywords which elaborate on the findings of our literature review. Our online research will include several different social media platforms which are essential tools that will aid to the development of our analysis on how the healthy lifestyle trend is currently evolving. In this online research, we want to answer our sub question:”Does Kombucha have a prominent online presence?” We have also utilized the hashtag function as a means to garner what trends are currently emerging from the web 2.0 landscape, as well as advanced search engines from websites https://tagboard.com and google trend analysis, in order to gain more insight into the conversations online social media users are having about healthy life style trends.The search engines we have used have allowed us as researchers to scan the online social media environment in real time in order to gage correlating patterns seen with our selection of keywords.
It should be mentioned that any personal information about the social media users we have observed will be disclosed, and only relevant information of our findings will be published.
The first step taken in our online research was incorporating the #tagboard.com website.
#Tagboard allows us to use our keywords as hashtags in order to search for and collect public social media uploads within seconds of being posted to networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Because of the saturation of information on these hashtag search engine websites, we decided on narrowing down our focus by using their filter function as means to organize our online research according to each individual social media platforms were selected.
The first set of keywords extracted out of our literature review include; “healthy lifestyle”, “demographic change” and “financial crisis”. However, it should be mentioned, that key words, “demographic change” and “financially crisis”, were not significant hashtags used in relation to healthy lifestyle trends, thus making them insufficient to apply in our online observations. As a result, we have narrowed our search with the keyword, “healthy lifestyle”.
Facebook:
Keywords: “healthy lifestyle”, “healthy life”
Additional screenshots of our Facebook results will be featured in Appendix 1: Online research.
Upon entering the keyword “healthy lifestyle”into tagboard, there had not been substantial information to observer. For this reason we inserted the word”healthy life”, to see if there was more hashtags to be found, and as a result there was. All hashtags used on Facebook posts highlighted on a variety of different subjects regarding living a more healthy life. One Facebook post emphasized on yoga, tea and meditation as a technique to “being your best self”. This information shows that Facebook users utilize the hashtag function as a means to express their awareness and tips on living a more healthy life.
The most frequent topics found under the “healthy life” hashtag were about tea. One Facebook post in particular gave steps on, “How to make your own Kombucha tea”. Since the topic of Kombucha is one of the key motivations behind our research, we then took the next step to look further into the Facebook page which provided this information.
The Facebook post came from a healthy living community which expressed itself through images of healthy foods, fitness, and a cover photo which says “Fall in love with taking care of yourself…Mind, Body and Spirit”. Both verbal and visual cues seen throughout the Facebook page illicit the driving motivations of the healthy lifestyle trend as discussed in the literature review. Screen Shots of this Facebook page will be featured in Appendix 1:Online research.
One interesting comment which appeared in the Facebook healthy living community was of a”How to make Kombucha” post, which included a Facebook users who asked: “What is SCOBY & where can I get it”.
The Facebook community moderator responded with a thorough explanation as to what SCOBY is and where it can be purchase .
From these findings, it can be concluded that, “making it at home”, also known as “DIY,” has produced a lot of curiosity and interest among those who identify with the healthy life style trend.
Keywords: “probiotics”, “vegetarianism”,” farmers markets”
Additional screenshots of these Instagram results will be featured in Appendix 1:Online research.
Following the online research of Facebook, the next social media platform that was observed was Instagram. Using tagboard.com as a filtering generator to narrow down our results when inserting our keywords into Instagram, has enabled us as researchers to observe the online environment of Instagram in a more organized manner by having access to the most recent posts.
The first keyword inserted into Instagram tagboard filter was “#probiotic”. Results showed that a majority of Instagram posts using the hashtag “probiotics” included images of Kombucha. One noticeable correlation between Instagram posts were their common interest in home brewing Kombucha. Several Instagram users posted their success in brewing Kombucha at home. One users in particular, identify his Instagram picture as an example of jars which contained SCOBY for his Kombucha class he currently teaches. He further elaborated on the rich probiotic benefits Kombucha has as a beverage and how taking Kombucha helps you in your routine for achieving a more healthier life.
The implications of such findings suggest that online social media users are in fact more conscious and well versed about the benefits of probiotics as mentioned in the literature review by Reid (2003). In addition to users elaborating on their knowledge of probiotic benefits, results of Instagram posts also revealed additional hashtags that were included on user’s posts like; “#gut health” “#healthy living”, “#vegan”, “# nutrition”,”#organic” and many other words associated with the healthy lifestyle trend. The utilizations of having associated words as hashtags, further reinforces how the manifestations of the healthy lifestyle trend, like probiotics, are seen by online social media users.
One Instagram post that had featured an actual probiotic drink brand as a pose to being home brewed, was featured on an Instagram post by veggiesdotnbite. This user appeared to have a large following of over 18,000 followers and identified herself as a plant based cook.
Upon exploring the Instagram users post about the probiotic beverage brand called clearly Kombucha; the post was of an image that included variety of different Kombucha flavors, with a caption that expressed the users admiration for the brand. Comments by followers appeared to be most favorable, which suggests consumers curiosities, desires and knowledge about probiotic beverages, like Kombucha. Furthermore, this particular Instagram post illustrated the high interests probiotic beverages have for those who align themselves within the vegetarian spectrum of a vegan based diet as mentioned by (McEvoy, C.T., Temple, N. & Woodside,2012).
Th
e next step of our online research on Instagram included inserting the key words “farmers market” into tagboard. Results showed a variety of different Instagram users varying from different western countries, (USA, Europe, Australia), posting about their experiences at their local farmer markets. Fresh produce, organic products, and beverages were the most frequent topics that were posted. Several of the posts which included “#farmers market”, appeared to be in relation to our previous findings where Instagram users posted their Kombucha beverages as an additional hashtag . Such information indicates the high relevancy of Kombucha currently has within the healthy lifestyle trend.
Other Instagram posts, featured Instagram users cooked produce that they bought at their local farmers market.
Interestingly, one of the hashtags included #omega-3 with fatty acids, along with several other additional hashtags, which emphasized on the health benefits of the local produce they purchased from their farmers market. Therefore, one can conclude that these particular Instagram users take a keen interest in promoting not only their experiences, but the healthy lifestyle benefits one can gain by aligning oneself with such activities like attending a farmers market.
Additional screenshots of our Twitter results will be featured in Appendix 1: Online research.
Keywords: “Probiotic beverage”, “Kombucha”, “Millennial”
Following the online research of Facebook, the next social media platform that was observed was Twitter. When entering the words,” #probiotic beverage” into Tagboard, it appeared that the most prominent results of twitter posts were linked with the words #Kombucha, as well as posted images of Twitter users and their Kombucha beverage. One user in particular highlighted their positive experience, in addition to the health benefits of the Kombucha beverage by tweeting:
“Another tasty @KeVitaDrinks product. Ginger a fav esp for headache days. #probiotic #Kombuchapic.twitter.com/Z5RYX5udni“
Another user also mentioned the health benefits by highlighting on how their Kombucha,” Improves gut health, mental clarity and mood stability.”
This information indicates that users are very much aware of the multidimensional health benefits of their probiotic beverage, by acknowledging and emphasizing on the beverages health properties. In correlation to our findings in our literature review, observed twitters users in our online research fit the profile of the high percentage of food consumers who are aware of functional foods like probiotics.
Other tweets not only elaborated on Kombucha’s health benefits, but also emphasized on their Kombucha beverage being “homemade”, in addition to “How to make your own Kombucha”.
Due to the fact that the hashtag “Kombucha” was frequently linked by users who used the hashtag “probiotic beverage” on their Twitter post, the following step taken was to enter the word “Kombucha” into Twitter in order to further investigate whether or not any valuable results would appear.
Upon research, one Twitter post by a Food guru’s Twitter account, posted an article regarding the eating habits of Millennials; Kombucha being one of the hashtags linked to the tweet. This Twitter post parallels the findings of our literature research by Stephen & Fry(2015), who mentioned that Millennials being more susceptible to healthier food options.
Other well received Twitter posts with the hashtag “Kombucha”, included verified twitter users like actors, reality tv stars and singers. These particular twitter users appeared to have the most retweets and replies about their Kombucha tweet.
Duck dynasty reality tv personality Jessica Robertson (925k followers), tweeted her interest and recommendation in trying Kombucha to her twitter followers. One Twitter follower responded with a question about what Kombucha is, as well as her interest in wanting to eat healthy and need for advice. This information is particularly relevant material in our research due to the peer to peer recommendations that occurs on social media and its substantial influence it has on the on going healthy lifestyle trends amongst millennials.
Other peer to peer influence included singer Dani Cimorelli, 488K followers . In this incident, Dani had tweeted a picture of herself with a Kombucha beverage. A curious Twitter follower replied with a question as to what she was holding. In response to the question, Dani clarified by saying:
“@halfbloodcim Kombucha!!! it’s fermented tea haha most people hate it but its my fav beverage :)”
The implications of this particular twitter conversation revealed not only the influence of peers, but also the possible criticisms Kombucha has by the general public due to its taste.
An additional research step that had been taken was researching Twitter accounts with Kombucha in their Twitter name. Upon observation, accounts with the words Kombucha in their name accounted mostly of official business brands and breweries located in California, New York City , Oregon, and Washington DC.
GT’s Kombucha, an Organic Kombucha brand from Los Angeles, has one of the largest followers with over 10k followers on their Twitter account. Several other featuring Twitter account including Kombucha Brooklyn and Craft Kombucha, identify as an official Kombucha brewery on their account. This information indicates Kombucha being associated not only as a probiotic beverage, but also as a beer beverage.
Blogs
Keywords: “Kombucha blogs”, “Kombucha Benefits”, “Kombucha opinions (Detox-sickness Kombucha)”
Blog
http://kombuchagirl.blogspot.nl/
The following online platform observed was to research blogs that were affiliated with Kombcuha. Blogs were an additional online platform we have chosen to observe, due to its popularity as well as being able to provide us with more high context information regarding the different aspects of Kombucha. Our first step was to google a substantial Kombucha blog which had active posts on the subject of Komubcha. The blog that had been chosen, which embodied these characteristics, was Kombuchagirl.blogspot.nl. Upon observation,one of the bloggers writes about a so called detox sickness after drinking too much Kombucha. Warning the public that even though this drink is healthy too much is never good.
She stated, “I discovered that kefir, like kombucha, is a powerful detoxifer. I read up on detox illness and quit consuming.”
(“Well, it occurred to me that downing an entire 26 oz of Kombucha without some prep for my body could certainly have the same effect. I was detoxing in a way that made me feel like crap! Actually, I don’t so much see it as detoxing, as an attack my body with an army of probiotics. My body had no preparation.
So, what do I take away from this? If you are brewing Kombucha, start drinking slow. I seriously wouldn’t drink much more than 4- 8oz a day for three or four days; maybe a week. I’m no doctor and don’t play one on TV, but my experience says that you need to introduce this powerful and yummy stuff carefully.
I have read on some other sites about folks having detox illness/effects, but I don’t think this is cause for alarm. The deal is, you have to give your body time to adjust to the powerful stuff in there. So, word to the wise new brewers, don’t slam your first batch down in one sitting!”)
There was one response that added to the warning:
Detox sickness mentioned in both the blog post and user responses, indicate the possibility for further research. From this information, we can conclude that although Kombucha is widely known for its health benefits, their is in fact a possibility for serious health issues that may arise due to over consumption of Kombucha, as mentioned by Hartmann, Burleson, Holmes, & Geist, 2000, who have suggested that problems have been attributed to drinking Kombucha.
Blog post on Cancer curing linking to literature review.
Another conversation that had been relevant to our research was a user mentioning how Kombcuha embodies cancer preventative benefits, as mentioned by (Dufresne & Farnworth, 2000), who proposed that Kombucha properties would improve resistance against cancer. Such insight suggests that one of Kombucha users initial incentives in wanting to try Kombucha is because of its health benefits, which aid to a more healthier life.
The following step taken was to see top searchs on Google trends that are related to the topic of Kombucha, and whether or not these results correlated to our findings on social media platforms.
Google trends search
Keywords: “Kombucha”, “Healthy lifestyle”, “Healthy diet”
Additional screenshots of our google trend results will be featured in Appendix 1: Online research.
After the environmental scanning of the web 2.0 landscape, the next appropriate step was to further investigate whether or not the relevancy of Kombucha appeared present on Google trends. Google Trends is an online search tool that allows users to see how often specific keywords, subjects and phrases have been ask over a specific period of time. This particular online tool has helped us in grasping a better understanding of where, when, and how often Kombucha is searched, and if result found reveal whether or not Kombucha exhibits characteristics of a rising trend.
Upon entering the keyword, “Kombucha” into google trends, results seen illustrated that Kombucha ‘s “interests over time” is in fact a substantial search trend that has grown significantly in the last five years. These findings also indicate that in the years 2015-2016, Kombucha search results are notably higher than previous years. The implications of these findings suggests that Kombucha has a promising future as a trend, do to its notable growth as a frequently asked search topic in last recent years.
After having found Google trends ” interest over time” results for Kombucha, we then utilized the “compare” function in order to compare our main keywords used in both our online research and literature review. Words which include, “healthy lifestyle” and “probiotics” appeared to have the most significant results. Interestingly, “probiotics” and “Kombucha” were higher in search results for “interest over time” than “healthy lifestyle”. However, this can possibly be due to their specificity as a topic in comparison to “healthy lifestyle”. We then inserted “healthy diet ” in replacement of “healthy lifestyle”, due to their similarity in subject matter, to see if there would be more substantial differences in results to compare to. Consequently, there was in fact more differentiation between the findings. All search interests on these topics revealed to be distinctly high in the year 2015. Furthermore, results seen suggest that searches for both probiotics and Kombucha have grown remarkably over the last decade, whereas healthy diets have stayed relatively consistent.
Additionally, the Google trends tool also featured a related search results function. This feature allowed us to identify other related searches with the subject of “Kombucha”. Results showed that the rising top subjects related to Kombucha include; “Kombucha tea”, “Kombucha benefits”, Kombucha recipes”, “Make Kombucha”, “SOCBY Kombucha” and “SCOBY”. Of the top related searches, “Kombucha tea” was of the majority of search results found. However, “Kombucha Benefits” were in second, as an additional top related search result.
Locations of interest in Kombucha resulted in being significantly high in the United States, followed by New Zealand, Canada and Australia. Since it was important to garner more specificity of these locations, we then adjusted our results by city as a pose to country. Results showed that the most researched cities on the topic of Kombucha included Portland, Seattle, San Fransico and Austin. This information is particularly relevant to our research, since there is a correlation between the posts of our social media findings and these locations. This suggests that searches on the subject of Kombucha are significantly high in these locations due to the prominent presence of healthy lifestyle trends in these locations.
Conclusion: Furthermore, from the information we have gathered in our online research, healthy lifestyle trends have manifested in many different ways throughout the web 2.0 landscape. According to our findings, Kombucha is currently making a progressive impact within the online social media environment. As a results, our research subquestion: “Does Kombucha have a prominent online presence?”, was answered. All keywords used in the online research illustrated that the topic of Kombucha is in fact a frequently discussed by online social media users. In particular, Kombucha’s health benefits and Kombucha DIY, are heavily embedded in how Kombucha is perceived by online social media users, thus making the aspect of Kombuchas health benefits and Kombucha DIY essential angles for further exploration in our Netnography .
Kombucha 
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