360DigitalInfluence

Big In Japan: Twitter

In a market where even the undisputed heavyweight champion of SNS, Facebook, has struggled to gain traction, a little bird named Twitter now rules the roost in Japan.

According to ratings agency Nielsen Online, 16.3% of Japanese Internet users tweet, or “mumble” as it is translated in Japanese. This is compared to less than 10% of Americans. Perhaps the most stunning aspect of this story is the blazing speed which this little bird has added to its flock. Twitter Japan launched a Japanese language service in 2008, but it wasn’t until a mobile version was introduced in October 2009 that things really took off.

Having left Facebook and MySpace in the dust long ago in the Japan market, Twitter users finally surpassed the long-time king of Japanese SNS, Mixi. Following the example of Masayoshi Son, a Twitter evangelist who also happens to be CEO of Japanese mobile phone and data provider Softbank, Japanese businesses are waking up to the necessity of having an effective social media and more often than not, it is Twitter they are most interested in.

Opportunity no longer knocks in Japan. These days, it tweets.

Fast facts:

• 16.3 – Percentage of Japanese on Twitter
• 9.8 – Percentage of Americans on Twitter
• 3 – Percentage of Japanese on Facebook
• 8,000,000 – Number of tweets per day from Japanese users
• 12 – Percentage of global tweets that come from Japan
• Japan recently set the world record for tweets per second following a recent world cup game

Note: This blog entry was based on an Associated Press article by Yuri Kageyama.

In what they’re calling a “world first”, Nielsen Online is measuring Australian usage of the mobile Web. According to their press release, there are just shy of 140,000 Australians who browse the mobile Web each day, with the average session being 4 and a half minutes. Now if only they could measure usage of mobile applications such as foursquare…

What do hydrants, voicemails and denial have in common?  They’re all now closely associated with the Tiger Woods brand, according to new research from Nielsen Online.

Today, Nielsen Online provided me with a Brand Association Map demonstrating the impact of the controversy on the Tiger Woods brand – based on analysis of online discussion about Tiger Woods both before and after the controversy.

Not surprisingly, as a result of the recent controversy the Tiger Woods brand has gone from being closely associated with video games, golf and other sports to other, well, less wholesome topics.

While the jury’s still out on how long it will take for the Tiger Woods brand to recover, one thing’s for certain – these less wholesome associations will take far longer to fade away.

Join me, Josh Mehlman (Editor, NETT Magazine) and Suzi Dafnis (Community Director, Australian Businesswomen’s Network) and find out!

Next week Wednesday, we’ll be running a 1-hour session on Facebook for Business.  Here are the details:

Lunch+Learn Webinar
Title:    Using Facebook to Build Your Brand
Date:    Wednesday, 14 Oct 2009
Time:    12 noon Australian EDST

REGISTER HERE!

During the session, we’ll be giving practical tips and covering:

• 5 ways to a rapid-start strategy in Facebook
• How to engage your Facebook community
• Real-life examples of how businesses of all sizes use Facebook to build their brands
• And more…

We’ve all vented one time or another about a negative customer service experience. Maybe it was the rude flight attendant, or the twelve-transfers it took to speak to a live human being to resolve an issue.  The challenge for many brands today is that Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and other forms of social media make it possible for hundreds or thousands of people to see and hear these negative experiences.

I like the analogy that Rohit Bhargava used last week that when there’s an unanswered negative review online, it’s a bit like having someone next to you have their phone ring but they don’t answer it.  You might think, what’s wrong with you – why are are you ignoring your phone?  Social media makes it possible for the entire world to see that person – or brand – choose to oddly ignore their ringing phone.

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Tomorrow, as part of Virgin Blue’s 4320SYD campaign, three explorers are setting out across Sydney and Tweeting their experiences minute by minute. Fans can follow their Tweets via a “Twitter Wall” on www.4320syd.com.

A quick recap of the project via an outreach email that we received:

It’s called 4320SYD. The premise is that three participants are flown from Los Angeles to Sydney with the goal of exploring the city over 72 hours before a camera crew, while using Twitter to update their progress every minute – all 4,320 of them. If they succeed, they each win round-the-world plane tickets.

The participants’ tweets are fed through to http://4320syd.com/, which features a ‘tweet wall’ of text and images that acts as a visual depiction of their Australian odyssey.

The three winning friends – Jade, Rob and Bobby – were chosen after they submitted an entry through http://4320syd.com/ describing why they deserved a three-day Australian holiday. In the spirit of Twitter, the entry had to contain 140 characters or less, and participants’ responses fed through to http://twitter.com/4320syd.

The @4320SYD (http://twitter.com/4320syd) account will follow the trio’s Sydney adventure, which begins at 4pm Wed 09 Sep (PDT) / 9am Thu 10 Sep (Sydney local time). The contestants’ individual Twitter accounts are located at @4320SYD_Jade, and @4320SYD_Rob and @4320SYD_Bobby. 

While the campaign willl succeed in creating nearly 13,000 pieces of content – Tweets – as of right now, each of the three contestants (Jade, Rob, and Bobby) has less than ten followers.  True, few people would want to follow the firehose of 4,320 Tweets in 3 days, yet Virgin Blue might have gotten more awareness of the programme had Jade, Rob, and Bobby been Tweeting about gearing up for the trip beforehand, following other Virgin Blue fans, and growing their network of followers before setting out into the city. 

In short, following our approach to developing a presence in Twitter:

Is Virgin Blue missing an opportunity to build up the number of their followers before pushing the go-button on their Sydney adventures?  We will find out in 72 hours!

During my recent trip to Singapore, I had the opportunity to grab coffee and have a chat with Ben Koe, Employee #3 of JamiQ, a new social media monitoring service which is currently in beta.

I’ve asked Ben a few quick questions about the state of social media across Asia Pacific, what companies should do first before jumping in, and how JamiQ will be different from the array of social media monitoring services currently on the market:

Q. How would you characterise the digital landscape here in Asia Pacific?
Asia Pacific contains some of the most densely connected communities in the world which makes it one of the largest opportunities for digital marketing. However, marketers are still undecided about the effectiveness of engaging online. But this is understandable, while we are certain about the large population that connect online, there is no one best way to reach them.

In order to engage successfully online, marketers need to flip their logic around. Instead of the traditional method of identifying the best media to communicate through, brands can now be their own media. Corporate blogs, community forums, YouTube channels, etc. are all affordable means for companies to establish their presence online and build communities around them. 

Q:  Across APAC, we are seeing an increased interest in social media. Before jumping in, what should organisations do in order to generate real results from their efforts?
Organisations need to take a step back from the hype and observe their brand online. Listening to what’s being said by their customers in the region is the most critical exercise one can perform. The ability to listen gives you the intelligence required to craft an effective communication strategy. Just like how you wouldn’t bother selling in-car stereos to people who take the bus, you need to know what your customers want; and most of the time your customers will not tell you directly, they’ll be telling their friends online.

Too often, marketers are communicating what’s on their agenda completely overlooking the “truth” being talked about on forums or being ranted on blogs. Once you know what your customers or the industry is talking about, you then can make better judgment and strategy for engaging them for your brand before consumer-driven perception takes over.

Q:  How will JamiQ be different from some other social media listening services?
JamiQ’s chief advantage is its reach. This is the foundation of social media monitoring. Just like a search engine, the more web pages the engine can cover the better a service it is. If you read the fine print on some social media monitoring services you’ll find that some claim to have indexed 12 million blogs, another 20 million, and others 100 million. So who’s giving you the full picture?

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I’ve actually got quite a fair bit to share, but i suppose the details can be further articulated in later posts. What i want to share is perhaps key takeaways that i got from Your Blog™ as a blogger from each of the presenters.

Overall
i know the session was about marketing your blog, but a great sense i got from each presenter, was that they actually don’t make money from their blog, but rather, their blog was both personal branding and a marketing tool for who they are as people, as personalities.

My suspicion (correct me if i’m wrong) is that earning a living from blog advertising for personally owned blogs is a bit of a myth. Whether it’s a question of eyeballs or sustainability, all three bloggers who shared use their blogs as pieces of thought leadership, reputation and authority. Only Arti, who was an ex-journalist was paid for her professional writing skills.

Yongfook: 8 profound and live changing things that happened because of my blog
Yongfook was one of my original heroes when i first started blogging in 2003. Back then, he was still writing his crazy Japanese food blog posts, talking about dealing with isolation in a rural Japanese village, and i thought “I want that! I want a really fun blog!” And so that’s my key takeaway, even as Yongfook matured and evolved to his current lifestream, he’s always maintained that unique Yongfook personality.

Arti Mulchand: Write Right
Key takeaway: You don’t have to use long flowery language to be a good writer. A good writer communicates clearly, gives readers content that is easily understood and makes a point. One good method to sustain reader interest, is by ’scattering gold coins’. Give them a good reason to read the next paragraph. Always.

Design Sojourn: How to be a __________ superstar
Key Takeaway: Managing your blog’s branding / personality so that you’re not an expert, but an authority on your given subject. My personal take on Brian Ling’s insight, is that it’s hard to be considered an expert in the field without actual accreditation, but being an authority is more feasible, valuable even perhaps. It allows you to share your opinions confidently, while always being open enough for discussion. Sometimes it’s not always about having the final say in things and have your words treated as ‘gold’, but being regarded in your area of interest / field of expertise. And you can play your cards right, is to share knowledge, share good things, invite different opinions, distill for further insights and maintaining both online and offline relationships. So those Technorati links that add to your authority? There’s some truth to that system!

Toysrevil: Eh, You Singaporean Meh?
Key takeaway: Original content. Toysrevil is the embodiment of passion when it comes to sharing knowledge, opinions on all things toys. But what really struck me, was how he puts his personal stamp on each picture he takes of a toy. In some sense, there is only one such picture in the world, they each tell a story, and convey important information for those in the toy scene. Each picture is uniquely his, and i believe that has helped add fans to his growing fan-base.

All’s well that ends well
And those were the key takeaways i got from the speakers! I’m sure everyone’s got an opinion and some key takeaways! May i invite you to share what yours were if you were here at Your Blog™ with us?