What are the Best Japanese Social Media Practices?

The best Japanese social media practices might not be obvious to the outside seller. Different cultures use social media differently, and the Japanese are no different in this aspect. While there might be some similarities across cultures, it’s important to target your strategy not only to the social networks that your target market is using, but how they use those networks.
Normally, in opening apps on your smartphone screen, tapping Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, you have a natural reaction across all cultures. I have talked with some friends from various countries, and each time, they share these same traits of social activities.
Regarding this, the Asian social media use rate is soaring as mobile penetration becomes more prominent in replacing the former communication behavior from calling and emailing.
Japanese millennials are taking similar actions with their foreign counterparts and are being influenced by social influencers and followers. Instagram and Twitter are useful to catch up information quickly, and expand their own networks.
However, it is necessary to comprehend the local situation: seek the best practices to fill these gaps and encourage them to spread brands posts spontaneously. In this article, I would like to give you some tips in exactly how young Japanese people use social media, and how to optimize your strategy for the most popular Western channels.

Facebook Groups: How the Japanese Youth Uses Facebook

No doubt an important tool, not only for a glance of NewsFeed, but responsive messaging with posting and reacting to friends’ content. In some small communities, Facebook Groups take the key role to bring invigorating conversation among specific members. Regardless of where and who, people make groups and join those who match their preferences.
Japan is no stranger to the growing trend of freelance working styles, with keeping main day job and multiple projects. Group memberships bridge the gap between those with new projects and freelancers, making this lifestyle much more accessible.
Japanese Social Media Tip: While Facebook’s main business is social media as well as daily interaction with local network, Facebook groups are still wildly popular in both the private and business sector. If your company projects either B2B or B2C interactions with Japanese customers, I recommend creating a Japanese Facebook page, and creating groups to reach local people and businesses within the community.

Twitter: Influence Via Text

Twitter use has a different perspective for Japanese people. In particular, most of the apps with the most longevity among teens are those centered around personal updates. In comparaison to other Asian markets, TV is quite popular and therefore, teens share TV content rather than real-time updates on what they’re watching. While businesses share references and information on Twitter, the content is more links as opposed to visual content and inforgraphics.
In other words, it is indispensable to adapt your content into Japanese in order to attain the sharing of local influencers. The potential of the Japanese B2B influencers is an untapped network, and it can be difficult to find these influencial accounts via Google or other research tools.
Business Methods: Twitter has a strong position in Japan. Due to the nature of the Japanese language, much more can be said in 140 characters than Western languages, and there are plenty of active accounts on the social network.
If you would like to access influencial accounts on Twitter, collaborating with local marketing firms or people is a key element to this direct approach.

Instagram: Looking to Western Influencers

Instead of sharing images on Twitter, Instagram has a more dominant position with creative pictures and videos. Brand invest the money to collect attention with brand awareness and engagement. Fashionable clothes and jewelry are leading products to become popular through Instagram promotion. It is an advantage compared to Twitter, to highlight only the visual identity in lieu of text.
Japanese Social Media Tip: B2C Instagram has the major share of communication with the highest engagement. It is better decision to make Instagram fans in advance to export goods from other countries, because we can start needless of localization. Some fashionable girls and women tend to look to Instagram celebrities for products.
So far, I have been illustrating some methods to local Japanese social media consumer and business persons. In detail, there is a variety of different localized approaches you can use depending on your industry and what you want to accomplish. Incorporating with social media is an initial footprint to seek reactions from other countries and affordable options to drive strategy from scratch.
What are your best tips on using social media for Japanese consumers? Tell us below or tweet us!
 

Image credit : Katerina Limpitsouni