Social monitoring platform Pulsar has launched ‘Mapping the New Normal’ revealing trends in global conversations, behaviors and response to COVID-19, with its first partner publisher Hearst monitoring the effects in Italy.
Based on analysis of millions of online conversations across social media, search, forums, news web, ‘New Normal’ provides insights into how populations around the world are reacting and what is driving emerging new behaviors – from interest in new policies such as Universal Basic Income to the emergence of DIY haircuts, new shopping habits and food deliveries.
To kick start the initiative, Pulsar announced two projects: launch of a publicly available #Newnormal dashboard identifying then tracking emerging trends in consumer behaviour; and a partnership with Hearst, publisher of brands including Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, ELLE and Harper’s Bazaar, on the Italian and Spanish Barometer indexing how the populations are feeling and behaving week to week since the COVID-19 lockdown.
Italy and Spain have emerged as the new epicenter of the global pandemic and have experienced two of the largest and ‘oldest’ outbreaks of the virus, second only to China and the US. With the countries having been in quarantine for over a month, the Pulsar barometers provides second to none insight into the social impact of the pandemic based on analysis in real-time of online conversations and behaviors. It analyses more than four million posts per week to reveal how Italy and Spain are slowly becoming more optimistic about the future but are most nostalgic respectively for their families and their nightlife with food and friends as key factors giving hope for a better future to come.
Francesco D’Orazio, CEO of Pulsar, commented: “When the crisis hit us we realised that all the analysis available was focused on the medical and financial side of the crisis but no one was focussing on how our everyday lives where changing. With every day that goes by, we are adapting and changing our behavior to shape a new reality. ‘Mapping the New Normal’ is trying to shed some light on what this new reality looks like and what new behaviours are likely to stick or dissipate once this is all over. It will provide insights that we hope will build understanding of trends in behaviour as populations adapt to the COVID-19 emergency and contribute to improving our global response.”
The #NewNormal dashboard identifies emergent online behaviors globally with the most recent topics including virtual backgrounds, head shaves and recreating art masterpieces at home. Topics are updated daily with input from the Pulsar research team, partners and users around the world and discussed in the New Normal Report, a weekly Zoom chat that started on Wednesday April 15th.
Source: Pulsar
