Japanese Influencer Marketing And How It Works

With annual spending on Japanese influencer marketing predicted to hit more than 70 billion JPY in 2025, this type of marketing is becoming essential in bringing your products or services to the attention of the Japanese market. With an impressive ROI , you can’t ignore the impact influencer marketing can have on the outcome of your campaign. But as with all other types of marketing done in Japan by foreign companies, influencer marketing in Japan works a bit different from elsewhere. Here are some key pointers on Japanese influencer marketing and how it works.

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Japanese Influencer Marketing Pointers

When you want to work with Japanese influencers, there are a few things to keep in mind that will help your collaborations in the Land of the Rising Sun run smoothly. Here are some pointers for working with influencers in Japan:

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• Approaching Japanese influencers: companies in Japan heavily lean towards working with trusted and known companies and brands, which puts smaller foreign companies at a disadvantage. This means that you will need to use a cautious approach with an emphasis on showing that your brand won’t compromise their image in any way. Going through a bilingual influencer agency is a short-cut to gaining their trust
• Humility is the way: in Japanese culture, standing out as an individual is not encouraged. Being a collectivist culture, humility goes a long way in Japan with ‘showing off’ too much being frowned upon, and this also goes for influencers. This will have an impact on how your campaigns will look and might takes some adjustments from your side on the design and how video material is created
• No secretive commercials: stealth marketing is a no-go in Japan, so you always have to disclose that content is an ad or sponsored. The hashtag #pr should be used for any type of commercial content
• Number of followers isn’t everything: in Japan, quality takes precedence over quantity and this is visible in the number of followers and consequent results of campaigns. Even with lower numbers of followers, campaigns with Japanese influencers can yield impressive results because of high follower interaction and conversion rates

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Japanese Influencers Preferred Channels

The social media landscape looks a bit different in Japan compared to other countries, and when you are planning your influencer campaign in Japan it is good to know which channels are preferred by which influencers and audiences. YouTube is the largest channel both in number of users in Japan as annual expenditure on influencer marketing in Japan. There are more male influencers and viewers on YouTube than female, which is also reflected in elementary school students’ dream jobs in Japan. YouTubers usually make longer-content videos that lend themselves well to products and services that benefit from demonstrations. 

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Female influencers and audience are mostly found on Instagram, the next largest channel for influencer marketing in Japan with an estimated 20 billion yen to be spent in 2025. Instagram influencers heavily focus on beautiful images, so companies whose products and services are in industries like fashion and skincare often lean towards influencers on Instagram.

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TikTok is popular with teenagers and early 20-somethings in Japan (Generation Z), and although conversion rates are generally not high on TikTok, the short-format video channel is great for raising brand awareness among the younger generation. Live streaming platform Twitch was originally used by gamers to demonstrate game play or to play together, but during the pandemic it has become popular as a live streaming platform for influencers share their daily life with people all over the world. The platform’s prospects to introduce companies, products, and services to a large audience during a live stream are now being discovered by influencers, as the long interaction time and chance to ask questions in real time offers interesting opportunities that can’t be found on other platforms.

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Types of Influencer Campaigns in Japan

Now, let’s have a look at the different types of influencer campaigns that you can potentially choose from. 

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• Product review: this is one of the most common types of influencer campaigns in which an influencer tries out a product or service while being photographed or filmed, and gives their honest opinion
• Let's play: a Let’s play type campaign lets a gamer-influencer play the game to be introduced with accompanying commentaries
• General sponsorship videos: these clips are similar to traditional-style TV commercial advertisements
• Live streams: during a live stream, an influencer tries out a product or service and gives the audience the opportunity to ask questions and demonstrations
• Product/game launches: to drum up excitement and awareness for a new product or game hitting the market, an influencer can do a dedicated product launch
• Social media content: an influencer can create one or more posts on social media with pictures and/or videos that introduce a product or service
• Brand ambassadors: this is a longer-running type of influencer campaign with multiple postings and an ongoing collaboration

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Influencer Agency in Japan

Which variety of campaign is most beneficial depends on the type of product or service it is for. If you would use an influencer agency, they won’t only be able to help you overcome the initial cultural and language barriers, they can also advice you on which social media platform(s) you can find the right audience and which type of influencer campaign would be suitable.

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A good marketing mix can contain a combination of different influencers, channels, and campaign types to reach as many members of the target audience as possible. With an influencer agency that is at home in the Japanese market on your side, you can come up with the most effective campaign to kickstart your product or service in Japan.

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