To conclude 2010, the author would like to discuss social media 2010 trend and 2011 outlook for Japan, comparing to worldwide trends of 2011 (mostly of the U.S.) mentioned in recent blog articles by Jonas and Thomas (2010).
1. Japan local SNS continue to prevail while major global SNS gets popular in Japan
International SNS originated in the U.S. such as MySpace http://www.myspace.com/, Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ and LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/ have not sufficiently penetrated Japan online market, where Japan local SNS such as mixi http://mixi.jp/ have been extremely popular and Twitter broke out in early 2010 when it won attention from mass media.
However, Facebook, whose Japanese version became available in May 18 2008 seems to taken root among early adaptors, starting to spread among other people as well as well in 2010. As a regular user of Facebook, the author noticed that more Japanese business owners and general public as well as social media and web marketing experts joined Facebook to benefit from in their business (making alliances) and private (keeping in touch with friends).
The author met a few Japanese web marketers online who blog in Japanese about how to leveraging Facebook in business and marketing. The author herself advised and supported a Japanese online business owner engaged in international trade to leverage global social media such as Twitter and Facebook in 2010, who at first was skeptical but now is a great fan of Facebook. Some of her friends (not necessarily web marketers) have been switching from Japan local SNS to Facebook. Therefore, it is possible that Facebook becomes hot in 2011 in Japan like Twitter became hot in 2010 in Japan. Being the largest SNS worldwide, its potential to become a leader in Japan is large; it may well be simply about the timing and marketing. The fact that Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder and CEO was chosen as the hottest person in 2010 by Times, is a huge positive factor for Facebook to become hot in Japan in 2011.
LinkedIn is a leading SNS for professionals worldwide but it is hardly used among Japanese people, and whether it becomes popular is a question under current situation. LinkedIn was the first SNS that the author started and it took a year for her to meet a Japanese people, especially those currently located in Japan. Possible primary reason is the language (it is unrealistic to join and benefit from LinkedIn community through group discussion and Q&A function without English communication skill as well as expertise and specialties). Having said that, the author was recently told from a Japanese online friend (the person mentioned above, who became a Facebook fan) that he found a Japanese how-to book about LinkedIn and is reading it, determined to master LinkedIn next. If Japanese version is launched (currently profile can be made in Japanese but it cannot be bilingual, English and Japanese), if discussions can be done in Japanese, and if how-to-use know how tools targeting Japanese become available, LinkedIn may also start to take off in Japan.
2. Blogging and Micro-blogging continue to grow, worldwide and Japan
Blogging has been popular in Japan similarly to other countries but blogging environment and blogosphere in Japan are rather unique, and this situation seems to remain the same in 2011. Japan local blog platform such as Ameblo http://ameblo.jp/ being popular instead of global ones of Wordpress http://wordpress.org/ and Blogger http://www.blogger.com/ that also allows blogging in Japanese. Blogging has been popular among authorities (TV starts, politicians) and individuals of general public but company blogs are not popular. Company blogs available in Japan are mostly of Japan office of the U.S. IT companies such as IBM and Dell and company blogs of Japanese traditional companies become popular in 2011 is a question.
Twitter http://twitter.com/, whose Japanese version became available in April 2008, had only been used by early adopters until 2009 but when Twitter and its related information such as smart phone application was introduced by media in February it became extremely hot and drastically became popular. Authorities including politicians (e.g. ex-Prime Minister Mr. Hatayama and ex-Minister of Environment Ms. Koike), TV starts and celebrities as well as social media/web marketing experts and general public now enjoy tweeting, as mentioned in the previous article Vol.42 – How to Leverage Twitter to Reach and Engage Glocal Audience. Twitter became so popular that many new Japanese words originated from Twitter and tweeting, one of which was nominated as a “popular word of the year”. Some Japanese companies developed interesting marketing models leveraging Twitter, and new Twitter model is a predicted worldwide trend for 2011. Twitter’s popularity and development of new marketing model likely to continue in 2011, worldwide including Japan.
3. Movies/videos grows and interactive TV news may become hot, worldwide and Japan
Further growth in online video, short and long content, is another trend worldwide including Japan. YouTube http://www.youtube.com/ has been very popular worldwide including Japan and this trend is likely to continue in 2011. Ustream http://www.ustream.tv/ is also drawing attention of some Japanese early adopters when a Japan local movie platform/portal site called Gyao http://gyao.yahoo.co.jp/ that has been providing videos of movies/cinemas for over 5 years (originally by Japan local IT company, which sold the platform to Yahoo! Japan).
The fact that such online contents and services are growing implies that needs/market of interactive TV is present. And with recent news about interactive TV from such companies like Google, there may well be a big progress in interactive TV technologies and interactive TV becomes a big topic in 2011.
The author would like to continue the discussion in the next article.
References:-
Jonas, Trevor (2010) 5 Predictions for Social Media in 2011
http://socialmediatoday.com/trevorjonas/253235/5-predictions-social-media-2011?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29&utm_content=Twitter
Thomas, Jesse (2010) 6 Predictions for Digital Advertising in 2011
http://mashable.com/2010/12/21/advertising-industry/
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