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 »

Japan’s advertising giants, Dentsu and Hakuhodo DY Holdings announced the plan to strengthen online advertising in 2010. Dentsu announced the plan to increase Internet-related sales from March 2009 150 billion yen to 250 billion yen by March 2014. Hakuhodo DY also stated that it will double the Internet-related sales from this term’s about 60 billion yen by March 2014. Traditional advertisement mediums continue to underperform, and have no indication to revive any time soon. Continue Reading »

When we talk about Internet users, I don’t think that people in 50s and up are what first comes to our mind, unless of course, that’s what your target market. I thought it was very interesting when I read a report by NetRatings showed that the 50′s and up demographic made 23% of Internet population in Japan, and it had higher growth than the average Internet population growth. For example, number of users in 60+ increased 22% during the past 12 months.

But we rarely see them on Social Networking Sites or blogs. Where do they go and what are they doing on Internet?

NetRatings research shows that “finance” related sites and “news” related sites are very popular among 50+ people in Japan. They also like to visit travel related sites. Continue Reading »