Search Marketing in Japan - Blog

Mobile Phone and SNS Usage by Women in Japan

2011-07-05T02:43:29Z

IMJ Mobile has published a market study on Women's behavioral patterns & awareness levels in the Japanese mobile market.

Teenage girls prefer Twitter (63.1%), compared to mixi (54.1%) and Facebook (22.1%). They use Twitter to be up to date on celebrity gossip, to find new music and entertainment information, besides communicating with their friends.

Teenage girls use Twitter to find interesting topics, to kill time, and make new friends. Compared to overall usage reasons of finding information on hobbies (67%), killing time (58%) and searching for useful everyday ideas, teenagers seem to utilize Twitter as a socializing tool.

As for the overall mobile market, 10.5% of the women in their twenties own an iPhone and 5.4%, an Android. Smartphone is more popular amongst younger women as the percentage of Smartphone owners decrease in older generations of women.

Smartphone owners definitely spend more time surfing on the net, as 41% of Smartphone owners have answered to spend more than an hour a day net surfing on their phones, compared to 20.2% of the traditional mobile phone owners.

Docomo is releasing 9 new models of Smartphones this Spring/Summer. There are speculations on the release date of the new iPhone. The Smartphone market is heating up!

Facebook in Japan

2011-06-17T07:15:21Z

Lifemedia has conducted a survey on the usage of Facebook in Japan.
The study was conducted on people between the age of 10~69, 100 users per decade per gender (i.e. 100 male teenagers, 100 women in thirties, and so on.)

Of all the participants, 13.3% are signed up for facebook and 14.4% didn't know what facebook was.

22% of women in their twenties and 12% in their thirties are registered facebook users compared to 20% of men in their twenties and 8% in their thirties, seem to show that women are more proactive in participating in new media activities.

On the other hand, 41.1% of women, compared 29.4% of men, haven't signed up for a facebook account because they don't want to register under their real names.

In Japan, Facebook hasn't spread as fast as it did in other countries. The reasons why people sign up for a facebook account is to get in touch with / keep in touch with distanced friends and relatives. From the survey, it seems that people were unsure of the benefit for using facebook.

From the survey, it seems that people are already aware of facebook. It may just need good promotion schemes or reasons to seep in.

IT Industry in Japan - After the Earthquake

2011-04-25T08:24:29Z

Life, as said in the previous post, is back to normal in Tokyo. Yet, I find it difficult to avoid reading stories related to the earthquake. I would like to share a few articles I found engaging & encouraging in this post.

1. What a British Native Reporter Saw After the Earthquake.
(I unsuccessfully tried finding an English version of this article.)
In this article, A Tokyo resident British reporter, Martyn Williams talks about the differences in the earthquake coverages between the Japan resident foreign reporters and the foreign reporters flown in to Japan for the earthquake coverage. The latter tried finding ways to make their stories sound more eccentric. Ordinary traffic jams and crowds in the busy parts of Tokyo were tied to the aftershock of the earthquake. One thing I found intriguing in this article was that the reason why some foreign companies evacuated their employees was not because they cared about their employees, but because they feared the lawsuits if anything did happen.

2. How a Sendai Based IT Company Dealt with the Disaster
Cyber Solutions Inc. is based in one of the heavily afflicted city, Sendai. This story tells the recovery of one company told in the chronological order. The company lost power supply, dealt with the continuous aftershocks, and they still made all the deadlines. The Indian president of this company kept his motivated and he plans to stay in the area.

Internet in Japan Since the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake

2011-04-12T09:35:33Z

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom here in Tokyo. At the weekend, parks were filled with an overwhelming number of people enjoying Hanami parties under the flowering trees. There is almost no visible impact of the disastrous Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake & tsunami from last month. Tokyo, spared the tragedy of the Northeast of the country, saw most companies resuming normal work hours soon after the earthquake, and many schools retaining their usual schedules. Restoration of infrastructure in the severely damaged northeastern region of Japan continues at a fast pace.

Something remarkable during this natural disaster was that while electricity, water supply, gas and mobile phone reception was lost in many areas, internet remained live in some areas and played a crucial role as an information gathering device. Twitter and other social media were used as real time information sharing platforms and gained recognition for their usefulness. In this article, we would like to review the roles major search engines, portal sites and social media played in assisting with the effects of the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake and tsunami.

Major Search Engines

Yahoo! Japan

Yahoo! is the most popular portal site in Japan. It is the search engine of choice for more than 60% of Japanese internet users. It aims to be the 'life engine' of Japan and has been serving Japan as the valuable source of information in times of emergency.

For example, when a medium sized earthquake occurs, representatives of Yahoo! Japan News, Yahoo! Japan Weather, and Yahoo! Japan Disaster Information receive an email warning containing related details. If a large earthquake happens, the above representatives report to the office and prepare appropriate content for the site. In the case of Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake, the disaster-related information page was published within a few hours, and continues to be updated and to grow more useful.

From Monday March 14th, a few days after the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake, a 70-person team spread between Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka, provided service in 24 hour shifts. On that day, a record-breaking 2.37 billion page views was reported by Yahoo! Japan. Considering the 1.3 billion population of Japan, you can see that many people relied on Yahoo multiple times during the crisis.
Beginning with news about the disaster and emergency contact information, the coverage expanded to information on assistance for reconstruction, and sites with information for children. Currently, the disaster information contents are categorized into the following four sections:
* Disaster Information (in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean)
* Assistance for Reconstruction　
* Power Outages and Rolling Blackouts
* Nuclear Power Plant Information

Google
Google also responded extremely quickly to the situation. Google Person Finder was published within two hours of the earthquake. Google's search specialization was put to use for finding out about the safety of loved ones.
Google continued to upgrade its Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake support services under Google Crisis Response.

Over the following 2 weeks, more than 30 related services were published, including a Google map with the rolling blackouts information, and a specialized Google Translate for Crisis Response. Google also collaborated with other companies to create contents such as 'road status map' (with data from Honda), and a YouTube channel with video messages from people in the afflicted area (footage provided by television stations). Google continued its vigorous expansion of Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake support services including a YouTube-based Person Finder channel, a Picasa-based evacuation center name list, and twitter live search updates regarding the situation. Within the company, employees created project lists for required Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake support services and specialists around the world rallied to volunteer their services, including teams based in the United States, Australia, and Korea. Some of these services were completed overseas during the night-time in Japan, enabling Google to work round the clock. A Google employee reported that since Google is a global company, somebody in a different time zone is always available to help. The fast development of these services was made possible by this kind of international teamwork.

Social Media

Many people used social media as a primary means of communications because phone lines were often congested.
The Internet connection remained live even in some of the disaster struck areas. People posted about their safety and shared information via Facebook and Twitter. On April 4th, 2011, IMJ Mobile published an intriguing report on the usage of Twitter and Facebook after the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake, and reported "Twitter was used more as a tool to collect real-time information while Facebook was used more as a tool to check the safety status of people. Most people used the tools separately for each purpose."

According to this survey, Within 72 hours of the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake, 83.5% of users utilized Twitter for information gathering, 47.5% for information sharing, and 39.1% to find out the safety of the friends and acquaintances. As for Facebook, 56.0% of the people used it to find out the safety of the friends and acquaintances, 46.8% for information gathering, and 38.3% for information sharing.

(IMJ Mobile 4/4/2011)

78.5% of the people found Twitter useful after the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake and 62.1% for Facebook, accordingly. More than half of the users found both tools useful. When asked whether to continue using these tools, 91.0% of the people were positive about using Twitter, 86.3% for Facebook, both proving a high level of satisfaction. 59.2% of Twitter users and 54.2% of Facebook users would recommend their friends and family members to use these tools. It seems that the penetration level of these tools will continue to increase.

Facebook
Various pages were published on Facebook in relation to the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake and were used as an active information sharing platform. According to socialbakers, a Facebook statistics site, active Facebook users surpassed 3 million people in Japan on April 5th, 2011. The total monthly visitor number was about 6.03 million (Nielsen Feb. 2011). It quickly reached 3% of the total population from its stagnant 2.5 million users before.
http://www.facebook.com/jishin.info
http://www.facebook.com/touhokujishin
http://www.facebook.com/0311earthquake.info
http://www.facebook.com/fight.japan

Twitter
As mentioned above, 80% of the users value Twitter highly. Twitter attracted most attention since the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake. To share accurate information with the public in real time, the Office of the Prime Minister opened Twitter and Facebook accounts.

On April 5th, the Japanese government called for local government and central government offices to open their own official twitter accounts for emergency information transmissions. With the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake as a trigger, if more public offices begin to use social media actively, it is likely to increase the adoption of the service. User numbers continue to rise from 21- million people as of February 2011 (Data from Doubleclick Ad Planner).

mixi
Japanese top SNS site, mixi also started its own information page (http://mixi.at/a52AkXT).
mixi users could create their own 'communites', information sharing pages for users with mutual interests. Many users created various Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake related communities. Since the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake, mixi has strengthened the stability of its system and encourages users to take advantage of their community tool.

A few of the leading Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake related communities opened by mixi users are:

General Information
"Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake Information":
"Major Earthquake Network":
"Tohoku Earthquake Community Links":

Victim Support Information
"Life Savor Information・Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake":
"Earthquake Victim Support Community":
"Tohoku Earthquake・Health Counseling Room by a Doctor":
"Tohoku Earthquake-Serious Disease・Disability・Elderly Support":
"Tohoku Earthquake Support from Kansai":
"Tohoku Earthquake Support, Chugoku & Shikoku":

Regional
"Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake (Iwate Prefecture Only)":
"Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake Support (Nigata)":
"Evacuation Centers in Ofunato・Tohoku Earthquake":

To find out the safety of loved ones, you can see the last login time of your friends by visiting their pages. In areas with internet connection and no phone lines, you can confirm the safety of your friends through mixi and send messages to them easily. Thorough using 'mixi voice', a mixi version of tweeting, you can announce your current condition and 'mixi check-in' shows your position through mobile phone GPS or base station location.

Since the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake, search engines, portal sites and social media have not only filled the gap left by telephone and television media, but also played an innovative role in transmitting & sharing information, which is likely to help increase adoption of various social media to broader Japan. This might be a good time to think about these media services, with their enormous information infrastructures, and about how they might be most constructively used in similar situations. I hope that the way social media companies and search engines reacted innovatively to support people in the event of this crisis also serves as a useful example for services in other countries, should similar needs arise.

Internet in a Time of Crisis

2011-03-28T06:13:18Z

It has been more than 2 weeks since the devastating earthquake hit the northeastern part of Japan and giant tsunami swallowed the coastal towns in the northeast. Tokyo didn't suffer much damage except for the occasional controlled blackouts and reduced train services. There is less food on the shelves at grocery stores and convenience stores, but it is mostly due to fear of food shortage.

We were all safe at our office in Tokyo. As with the rest of the country, we are praying for the early recovery of the heavily damaged part of Japan and the safety of the evacuated people.

If you are in Japan or has a friend or family member who are in Japan and want to find information, 'Google Crisis Response' might be a good place to start.

There are news, alerts, person finder, transit information, links for donations and so on. If you are looking for current information in English, it is a good place to start.

'Social Phone', A New Mobile Application by mixi

2011-03-03T09:19:51Z

A Japanese SNS site mixi has released a new application for smart phones called 'Social Phone'.

Similar to other SNS mobile applications, you can edit your status, upload pictures, write diaries, review the status of your friends, and so on. It's a great update from its predecessor with simple functions to view updates and write diaries on its platform.

In the near future, mixi is planning to add functions for users to view their friends on the map, and using the felica supported phones, users will be able to make mixi friends on the spot by bumping their phones.

Added features will help users connect in the real world as well as in the digital universe, but would you want your online friends to know where you are?

Facebook and Dentsu Advertisement Agreement

2011-03-01T03:33:23Z

On February 28th, a major Japanese Advertisement Agency, Dentsu has announced that the agreement was made between Dentsu and Facebook for Dentsu to become the official ad sales representative of the Facebook advertisement in Japan.

With this agreement, Denstu will have the exclusive rights to sell the Facebook Premium Advertisement, located on the right side of the page, and will have priority access to Facebook's latest technology and news.

Already famous Japanese clothing company, Uniqlo, is amongst the companies which already utilizes Facebook for its promotions. Will this agreement help other Japanese companies to promote their presence in the international market?

Social Media Usage Trends Amongst Japanese Corporations

2011-02-23T06:45:45Z

News site, Mycom Journal has published an article about the social media usage trend amongst Japanese Corporations.

http://journal.mycom.co.jp/news/2011/01/21/064/index.html

The market study was conducted by NTT Resonant and Looops Communications and published on January 20th, 2011.

The survey was conducted on the personnel, in charge of Comapnies' Twitter accounts. Since the last survey, conducted in July, 2010, the usage of YouTube grew by 19.6% and Facebook by 9.6%.

The main aims of the social media usage are, 'branding' and 'PR'.

The companies which allocate more than 3,000,000 yen for Social Media budget grew from 31% to 50% of the total answers.

Large corporations are beginning to create social media guidelines. The main concerns amongst the social media personnel of the corporations are the lack of human resources and the hardship of measuring the effect of the social media.

Coporate Twitter Usage in Japan

2010-08-06T08:34:01Z

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.

Detailed Q&A provided by Yahoo! Japan (provisional translation ver. 2 by wasabi)

2010-07-29T09:25:45Z

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.

Summary of the Yahoo! Japan & Google partnership announcement

2010-07-29T09:23:06Z

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

Twitter in Japan

2010-06-21T09:35:35Z

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.

A New ID Check Law in Tokyo

2010-06-11T08:34:22Z

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.

Alpha Bloggers of Japan

2010-01-08T08:50:38Z

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.

Internet As a Method of Electoral Campaigns

2010-01-08T07:15:14Z

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.