Top 5 Social Media Channels in Japan

Using social media is a good way for marketing in Japan especially for young audience. I will look deeper on which social media is used for the ages between 20 to 29 years old. If you are thinking to reach young audience, social media is efficient to do so. However, I found out interesting fact from the research by the goverment where there is a difference in which particular ones are most used in Japan vs United States. Here are the top 5 social media channels in Japan.

5. Google+

Interestingly enough, Google+ is more popular in the United States than in Japan. Because of the nature of it, some may use Google+ for other purposes than communicating with others. I would say you do not necessarily focus on Google+ when targeting Japanese people.

4. Instagram

Instagram is getting more and more popular to catch up with trends. Many young Japanese people follow celebrities' accounts not only in Japan but in all over the world. Some use Instagram to post to share their specific interests, such as arts, fashion, cars, or animals. There are a lot of commercial accounts which attract tons of followers as well, especially with photogenic products. The problem is, Instagram is rarely used for the ones which have no specific interests on anything.

3. Facebook

Facebook is ranked #1 in the United States. Most of the people use Facebook in the United States for sure. In contrast, though it is more popular for 20's than any other age ranges, it is only for just more than 50%. However, it is the good choice if you are familiar with Facebook pages and ads because the strategy works well in the same manner in Japan. In addition, the good thing about Facebook is that it is used by all generations. As for ages from 20 to 59 years old, average of 40% people use Facebook which is very high rate among other social media.

2. Twitter

Interestingly enough, Twitter is ranked #2 in both Japan and the United States. In Japan, the number of reaches are almost the same as Facebook. The rate gets decreased as ages go higher. For older generations over 30, Facebook is more familiar than Twitter.

1. LINE

Do you use LINE a lot? Probably not. LINE was originally released as a messaging app on mobile phone, later they released PC version, and more and more features have been added to best fit for advertisement platform. I recommend to try it if you are interested. You would notice it outperforms the other social media from the number below.

In the next blog, I will look deeper about the media used compared with the United States, and also cover about LINE. Stay tuned! 

Data source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications