Tuesday, March 05, 2019

Social Media Landscape in Japan

I thought it would be interesting to introduce the more important, popular and commonly used social media platforms in Japan, and see how they showcase different dynamics and usage purposes compared to the U.S. 

LINE

The instant message service LINE is the most widely used SNS app in Japan; it has the highest penetration rate and also the largest monthly active users of 76 million people, which is more than 60% of the whole population.

Brands can set up official accounts on LINE and send promotional messages to users as long as users add the brand accounts as their “friends” first. LINE also has incredibly high daily active users, and I think it’s a platform for really intensive and intrusive communication with audience since it’s basically a Facebook messenger, just the brands can send you messages whenever they want.

Twitter

Twitter is the largest social media platform in Japan if we don’t count instant message services in. It’s the app where the 20s go to. It’s widely considered as an alternative source for daily news digest and THE portal site for the nation’s word of mouth. It tells you what’s trendy in Japan at the moment, and also enjoys a high monthly active user base.

Instagram

Next, Instagram! Same as everywhere else, Instagram plays a big role in manipulating, influencing the real-world purchases in Japan. Instagram is a highly female dominant social media site among 10s, 20s, 30s users. The monthly active user % is the highest among all platforms – almost 85%. And 40% of female users said they have purchased something influenced by Instagram. Given its popularity and characteristic of being very visual, I think Instagram should be a good corner stone for overseas brand's promotion in Japan.

Facebook

Finally, Facebook. In Japan, Facebook’s users fall into the middle-aged groups like 40s, 30s and 50s, so it’s a slightly older platform in terms of its demographics, and also a slightly male dominant platform for 40s, 50s, and 60s age groups. The total users in Japan remain stagnant for a while and the monthly active users are only half of the total users, so it’s really just dying down.

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