Motoko’s weblog

When you see everyone around you on Twitter and Facebook, you think, “Wow! Twitter and Facebook are taking over the world!” But almost every time I talk to people who are not in this industry, I find that they have no idea of what I’m talking about. Some may be just starting to use Twitter, but not aware of any use of Twitter other than to chat with their friends and family, and have never even considered using it for business. Others may have been on Facebook a few years back, but haven’t been using it for a while since they graduated from University. Twitter currently has less than 10% reach in US market. This is probably much smaller than most of Online Marketers think. Perhaps, it’s good to step CONTINUE READING »

I wrote an article “Social Media Marketing – The Japanese Way” for ClickZ earlier this month. The article received more than 300 re-tweets in 3 days (currently has 350+), and it got me thinking how little information about non-US market is available, even in the world of “Internet”, which supposed to connect everyone, everywhere.

Actually, there are lots of data available from different markets. But if you speak (read/write) in English, you typically see the information available only in English. This is probably why, my article, which was in English, was well received in US and other non-Japanese speakers.
Btw, CONTINUE READING »

On July 27, Yahoo Japan and Google Japan announced that Yahoo Japan’s organic search results will soon be powered by Google. Needless to day, this change would have a huge impact on many search marketers and site owners targeting Japanese market. Today, I’d like to go over the facts mentioned in the announcements, and examine how it may change the search marketing in Japan.

Fact 1) Yahoo Japan will use Google’s organic search engine
I personally welcome this change in regards to the algorithm producing the search results. Unfortunately, it is a well known fact that those link farms and the paid links can improve the organic ranking in Yahoo right now, and many search marketers and the site owners in Japan think/believe that SEO is nothing more than CONTINUE READING »

Yahoo Search (Japan) had 2,609 mil search queries during the month of April, which made them the number 1 search site in Japan. According to the report by NetRatings (netratings.co.jp) “Search Service Usage Report” (the search conducted on PC at home and work), Google search had second most search users and the number of search queries in Japan.

Fields: SearchBrands/SearchUsers/Reach/Queries/PageViews/Sessions (thousands)

CONTINUE READING »