What To Expect From Japanese Influencers

Working with influencers in Japan when you want to market your products or services to the Japanese market is steadily gaining popularity. This is no wonder when you look at the many specific advantages of influencer marketing, especially if you want to capture the attention of younger audiences. But finding and working with Japanese influencers asks for a certain finesse when it comes to cultural differences and establishing a communication style that works. And did you know that some of the measures of success work a bit different over here? Here are some of the hurdles can you expect when you start working with Japanese influencers, and how you can overcome them.

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Japanese Influencer Marketing

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When you choose an influencer to work with, their favorite (and sometimes only) social media channel will have an important impact on your campaign. So first, lets have a closer look at the social media landscape in Japan when it comes to influencer marketing. Which channels do influencers use to reach their audiences, and who are likely to be found on these channels?

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• Instagram: one of the most popular social media for influencer marketing in the world, Instagram also gained a strong foothold in Japan. Especially products and services that benefit from beautiful pictures and short-format videos do well on Instagram, as do companies that are mainly looking for a younger female audience 
• YouTube: if you are looking for a predominantly male audience and have a product or service that would benefit from a longer-format video like product reviews, YouTube is the best medium to go through. As the most popular video medium in Japan, you can find your target audience here for sure
• TikTok: while TikTok users aren’t using the short-format video medium so much to research products or services and many users are too young to independently buy online, it is the go-to channel to raise general brand awareness amongst Generation Z in Japan
• Twitch: this live-streaming medium has become a popular platform for influencers in the gaming and lifestyle spheres. Due to nature of live streams, Twitch gives influencers and audiences the unique opportunity to interact for prolonged periods of time, making it an ideal channel for game walkthrough commercials (Let’s play), product launches, and product reviews 

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Contacting Influencers in Japan

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One of the first hurdles to take when you want to start with an influencer campaign in Japan is to find out who would be interesting to contact. There are not many ready-made lists in English that you can simply find on Google, and those that are there usually only list very famous influencers who charge very high fees to collaborate with them. But let’s assume that you have found a few influencers who seem interesting and you made a short-list of influencers to contact. That is when a new challenge emerges.

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The strong inclination towards privacy of individuals has a large impact on how influencer marketing works in Japan. What you say or who you affiliate with on social media can create a strong backlash if it is perceived in a negative way. Because influencers’ ability to do their job completely depends on their followers’ perception of them, they have to be extremely careful about every little thing they say and do on their accounts as well in their private lives. This makes them wary about working with unknown companies, even more so if they are foreign as they can’t research what is being said about them as easily.

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Understanding Numbers of Japanese Influencers

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Another, perhaps more surprising, impact the Japanese fondness of privacy has on working with Japanese influencers is that you should interpret campaign outcome numbers differently. While an engagement rate of 5% is usually seen as a lower limit of success, in Japan it is near impossible to reach rates that high because people tend to use comments, likes, and shares much more sparingly than elsewhere. Even an engagement rate of 1%, if comments are positive, can be seen as a rewarding result.

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If you are used to marketing to a large English-speaking market, influencers don’t really become interesting until they hit a certain number of followers for many marketers. The Japanese-speaking market is much smaller than the English-speaking market, which means that a smaller number of followers in Japan means a larger percentage of the market compared to the English-speaking market. If you are hoping to work with an influencer who has a following of at least multiple millions because that is the number you are used to, you will end up having to work with agents who work with big celebrities that charge very high fees.

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Why Would I Use an Influencer Agency in Japan?

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If the above has made you feel hesitant about using influencers for your marketing campaign in Japan, don’t give up just yet. If done well, an influencer campaign can make all the difference in your efforts of breaking into the Japanese market. Going through a bilingual influencer agency in Japan can make your job a lot easier and yield much better results compared to going it alone. 

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Bilingual agencies can not only help you past the language and cultural barrier, they also have a ready list of trusted influencers who are happy to work with foreign companies that fit their style and image. After figuring out what your company and products or services are all about, they can find one or more fitting influencers without you having to go through long lists. Moreover, they can advise you on campaigns and make sure that you get the most out of your collaboration with influencers in Japan. 

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