Search Marketing in Japan - Blog

NTT Resonant and Loops Communications, have conducted a market research on Corporations' Usage of Twitter.

Out of 315 effective study participant votes, more than 60% of them said they started using Twitter in 2010.

33.3% of the corporate users actively comment on consumers' tweets about their products, thus monitoring feedback of the customers and actively communicating with customers.

65.5% of the study participants answered that the access numbers to their official blogs increased since they started using Twitter. 47.6% of them said that new customers increased after they started using Twitter.

But, more than 40% of them answered that it is difficult to measure the effect of Twitter usage.

More than 90% of the study participants answered that their company is either keeping or increasing the Staff number & budget for their Twitter accounts.

When asked, which Social Media they are planning on utilizing actively, 74.6% of them said Twitter, followed by Blog at 59.7% and only 15.2% of them said Facebook.

It seems like Twitter is getting more popular in the Japanese corporate world. The current challeng is to set the right KPIs and guidelines for those who are new to the Twitter world.

Read a summary of the press release.

Q1 Which areas of the service are covered?
Search engine and PPC platform technologies for the following 4 areas: web, image, video, and mobile.

Q2 How will this partnership affect the competition between Yahoo! Japan and Google?

Google technology will be on the backend, so users will not notice the difference on the search results page.　　
(Please refer to the search results page images below. Note that only organic results (blue) and PPC ads (red) will be replaced by those using Google technology.)

Q3. How long is the contract for? Is it renewable?
The contract is for 2 years, renewable every 2 years thereafter based upon mutual consent. This applies to both search engine/PPC and data provision contracts.

Q4. What difference will it make when Yahoo! Japan provides content data to Google?
Google currently collects data only from crawlers. However, if Yahoo! Japan directly provides their data to Google, updated pages will be reflected in the search results more quickly, improving the freshness and increase the relevancy of the search results and enhancing the search experience for the user.

Q5. Will the agreement change Yahoo! Japan's relationship with Yahoo! Inc. (U.S.A.)?
This change is limited to the provision of search engine and PPC data. Yahoo! Inc. will remain Yahoo! Japan's strategic partner for search and other services. There will be no change in the capital structure or relationship.

Q6. Are there any implications for Yahoo's business in the future?
Not in the short-term. In the mid to long term, this is expected to Improve Yahoo! Japan's search and PPC services and maximize advertising revenue.

Q7. When will the transfer take place?
As soon as possible.

Q8. Once Yahoo! Inc. (U.S.A.) completes the switch for YST and YSM, will they discontinue support for Yahoo! Japan immediately?
No. The development and support for YST and YSM will be continued until Yahoo! Japan completes the transition of search engine and PPC platform to those of Google.

Q9. Will there be changes to the usability of the search services?
The current interface will be maintained, so there will be no changes to the usability for users.

Q10. Have you consulted with Japan Fair Trade Commission on this partnership?
Yes. We have confirmed with them that this partnership does not pose any legal issues.

Q11. How will this partnership effect the competition among search services in Japan?
Even when Yahoo! Japan and Google use the same technology to provide search results, Yahoo! Japan will be customize the technology to their services. Similarly, the user interface of Yahoo! Japan will remain unchanged. Therefore no changes in the competitive landscape are forseen, including the status of competition with Google (Japan).

Q12. Has Yahoo! Japan used other search engine technology before apart from that of Yahoo! Inc.?
Yes. From May 1998 to March 2001 the technology was provided by Goo, and between April 2001 and May 2004 it was provided by Google.

Q13. Yahoo! Japan currently provides Softbank Mobile (SBM) with their mobile search technology. Will this be affected?
No. Yahoo! Japan will continue to provide SBM with mobile search technology and the mobile ad platform.

Q14 Are there any financial implications?
There will be no major impact or changes to the profit structure.

Q15. Will there be any effect on ad sales?
During previous ad platform transitions the effect was small.

What does this refer to?
1. Yahoo! Japan will switch their search engine and PPC ad platform technologies from their own Yahoo Search Technology to that of Google.
2. Yahoo! Japan will begin to supply search content data (auction, shopping, chiebukuro (Yahoo! Answers) to Google's index on a daily basis.

What influence will Yahoo's decision have on the Japanese search market?
Google's technology will be serving over 96% of the search queries in Japan. The market is currently led by Yahoo! Japan with 58%, followed by Google Japan with 38%. Google will also become the top PPC ad serving technology provider.

When will it happen?
"The search engine technology switch is expected to take place by the end of this year 2010. It is expected to take longer for the PPC platform technology switch because of existing sales arrangements with ad agencies." (Masahiro Inoue, CEO, Yahoo! Japan. Translation.)
*Note: The official press release from Yahoo! Japan says the switch will take place "as soon as possible"

Why Google, not Microsoft(Bing/MSN)?
"Because many of the services that Microsoft claims to provide in Japanese are still in their development stage." (Inoue, Yahoo!Japan.Translation.)

Read the detailed Q&A

iMi Research Bank has conducted a survey on the usage of twitter in Japan. The survey was conducted on Japanese men & women from teenagers to seniors. 1200 people participated in the survey.

More than 90% of the people has heard of twitter. This might have something to do with a recently aired prime time TV drama series.

About 18.5% of the people has an Twitter account.

More than 70% of them started tweeting this year.

More than 60% of them rarely ever tweets.

Most users have less than 10 follows and followers.

More than 50% of the users tweets on PC only.

Most people follow their friends and/or celebrities. Some people meet on Twitter. It might be too early to determine how Twitter will grow in the Japanese culture.

If you are knowledgeable about the Japanese culture, you might have heard of 'internet cafe'. It is a coffee shop where you pay for a booth or a seat to go online. You can be anonymous and enjoy your time online with free drinks at most 'internet cafes'.

It will all change on July 1st, 2010 for 'internet cafe' users in Tokyo. There will be a mandatory ID check at all the 'internet cafes' in Tokyo.

A market research company, iShare inc. released a market research report about the awareness level/opinions about this law.

The study was conducted on Tokyo internet users, between twenties to forties.
From this study, only 17.5% of the users knew about the law, but about 64% of them supported it. The reason being that it "will make the cyberspace more safe" and "will help prevent crimes".

On the other hand, about 45% of them do not want to go through the time consuming ID check process.

Let us see if this law will affect the 'internet cafe' business and their clientele.

A writer blogging about other bloggers in Japan: blogger matrix.

This list only concerns business book review blogs, but if you are interested in finding Japanese blogs, you might find it useful.

Use of the internet has been forbidden for candidates running for offices in Japan.  This is mainly due to the law erected in 1950 which governs the minute details of advertisements  including posters and fliers for campaigns.  This law was supposed to bring equalities to the candidates, rich and poor.

Today, with the advancement of the internet technology, it is much easier to reach out to broader audience with little to no money.

Today, young politicians are working to change the law.  The supporters of the use of the internet  will submit the bill to change the law on the upcoming ordinary parliamentary session on January 18th.  If all goes well, the candidates will be able to use the internet for the House of Councilors election this July.

Written from the article about the pros and cons of the use of internet for election on cnet Japan.

ishare inc. has conducted a market research on the awareness level of Japanese font URLs in the local market.

The study was conducted on 510 men and women in twenties to forties.

• 63.1% of the respondents are aware of the existence of Japanese font URLs.
• 68.5% of the male respondents are aware of the existence of Japanese font URLs.
• 56.1% of the female respondents are aware of the existence of Japanese font URLs.
• 66.1% of the respondents in their twenties are aware of the existence of Japanese font URLs.
• 58.0% of the respondents in their forties are aware of the existence of Japanese font URLs.
• 69.0% of the respondents have made mistakes manually typing URLs.
• 46.1% of the respondents feel positive about being able to type in URLs in Japanese.

More statistics on the original article.

[Thoughts]
For average Japanese internet users, it might be difficult for them to remember or type in URLs in other languages.  Seeing this result, it might be a good idea to acquire an easy to remember local language URL, when localizing a website.

Web Marketing Guide published a market study report on Users Reactions toward the Internet Advertisements.

The study was conducted on Male and Female between the ages of 16 to 69 years old.

• younger age groups, especially 16~19 and 20~29 groups answered to have experienced more aversion toward internet ads.
• People tend to dislike seeing ads they are not interested in and ads with overly exaggerated expressions.
• Women are more sensitive to ads with overly exaggerated expressions.
• Women are less open to share their personal data for behavioral targeting.

Yahoo! Japan changed its algorithm in September 14th, 2009.  The last updated was about 4 months ago.
MarketZine, a net market web zine published a SEO study report on the changes made using data from May (before the changes were made), and from September (after the change).

Using 10 keywords and some known SEO tactics as measuring tools, they compared ranking changes of the sites placed 1~100 in May.

Excerpts:
Having more informative contents on a page is a good practice.
Domain age is back on the evaluation metrics.
Links from influential sites are valued highly.
Earning more links is a good practice.
Evaluation from the registered Yahoo! category is influential.
Relevance of the linked sites is valued highly.
Get links from different IP addresses.
On the other hand, titles, meta tags and Yahoo Category Registration have less effect on the rankings now.

They have a good charts on the original report.