Using ‘Twitter’ is a realtively new concept in the business world, but some main stream companies are taking to it by storm. Sometimes it’s the company itself twittering, but other times it’s the customers twittering about the company’s products.
http://twitter.com/about#about
Do you think twittering will catch on in Japan? What kinds of products would be more likely to be twittered?
May 23, 2009 at 4:38 am |
I think ‘twitter’ will be in Japan commonly because only limited people can share precious information if some company use it.
as I said in the class, TV shopping companies, which advertise their products mostly by TV programs, can take an advantage from ‘twitter’. there must be so many customers of all ranks. some tend to buy just reasonable and not expensive products, some tend to buy expensive goods such as gems. First, you can classify the customers into those who are rich and are not, if you run this kind of business. Second, you can send some letters to the customers seeming rich, which say that if you want some exclusive information about our products that are really rare and invaluable, please register this ‘twitter’ program. you will get good information faster than other general customers. the reason why I focus on the rich is that they probably have enough money to buy luxuries and want to purchase them to boast. Finally, the company will use the ‘twitter’ to send the information after they finish registering. this encourages the rich to buy more products because they always want to pride themselves.
by the way, I think that the company can use ‘twitter’ not only for sending information about the products but also about party which the company is going to hold for the patrons to show its gratitude.
May 23, 2009 at 5:29 am |
Akio,
Hey, I like that idea. Some stores in France do that already, holding ‘private’ shopping parties for preferred customers who appreciate more attention and fewer numbers of shoppers in the store in a more relaxed format. Is this done much in Japan already?
May 23, 2009 at 4:54 am |
I think twittering will catch on in Japan because even now mixi, cheat and blog which is similar to twittering is popular in Japan. So, it is easier for moden people who are familiar with these things to begin to be interested in twittering.
I think food and drink would be more likely to be twittered. This is because I think food and drink has close connection with our daily life and people tend to have a talk about food, alcohol, drink, bars and restaurants casually. It is natural for people to want to go to good restaurants or bars to eat delicious food and drink or alcohol. So, I think restaurants and bars should join twitter and give information abot them to people who have twitter and make them have talk about their meal and drink on twitter.
May 23, 2009 at 5:31 am |
Takeshi,
You have a good point, that some things might be more natural fits for this kind of advertising.
As to twittering being similar to Mixi, it’s a little different as anyone can twitter (whereas Mixi you need an invitation), but whether people decide to join your group or not is another matter.
May 25, 2009 at 3:01 pm |
as in our class nobody knows twitter, it is not famous in Japan. i dont think twittering is good way for business. Ive read an artcle about hollywood star using twitter for message to people. I think it can be happened because people in the USA know what twitter is. for business in japan, we should use something else which is more famous. it would be Mixi. the number of mixi’s user is higher than facebook’s or myspce’s and mixi company is getting ready to widen their networking service to china.
considering that, using twitter wouldnt work well. if company really want to use it for thier business, they’d better start making people know what twitter is first.
May 26, 2009 at 10:38 am |
Emiko,
You have a point there. If your customers don’t use a service because they are not familar with it, you would first have to educate them about it. I have the feeling that Twitter will be very big in Japan soon. It is growing very quickly in the US (it’s less than 3 years old) and has over 6 million users but the growth rate is phenomenal, some 1382% in March of 2009. Another article from a blog reports differently, but with an estimate of over 10 million users worldwide, some 80% in the US.
Facebook now has over 175 million users (there are only 130 million people in Japan) worldwide. I’m not sure if Twitter will continue to grow as quickly as Facebook did, but Twitter certainly seems like it is growing quickly at its current growth rates, though it probably can’t catch Facebook number-wise as Facebook had a big headstart and is still growing very quickly also.
I have a few questions for you and our other posters;
How many Mixi users are there currently?
How old is Mixi now?
How quickly did Mixi grow in its first few years?
A lot of trends that start in the US become big later here, though not all of them do. I think a lot of Japanese are big on using texting, so I think it will catch on here eventually, it just may be in a different form (just like with blogging, where Japanese have the biggest presence in average people with blogs).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
http://www.socialtimes.com/2009/03/twitter-us-growth/
May 26, 2009 at 6:10 am |
I dont think twittering will catch on in Japan. Recently, there are many internet services such as mixi, Timelog etc. But for a business, it would be great. Because if someone registers in twitter, he can not only talk with menbers but also share the latest information about new product immediately. SO I think twitter is very good on advertising products.
May 26, 2009 at 10:39 am |
Eiichi,
See my comments in response to Emiko.
May 26, 2009 at 2:38 pm |
I’m happy to answer the above questions:
Currently there are 16.3 million Mixi users.
Mixi started at February 2004.
In 2004, two social networking service appeared in Japan: Gree and Mixi. At first a large part of people used Gree and became interested in SNS, which makes people being interested in knowing more about Mixi. That is the reason why the number of Mixi user experienced a rapid growth at the first few years.
The advantage of Mixi is the low anonymity. It is an important point for gain user’s trust. Thus, I think Twitter seems to be caught on in Japan whose anonymity is respectably low like Mixi, and I am expecting that this will be widely used in business situation in the near future. I like Akio’s idea: classifying customer as rich and poor. Now I am thinking we should also classifying them as age, sex, status and the place they live in. In this way, we can offer better service which fill customer’s needs more precisely.
May 31, 2009 at 2:24 am |
Yes, it’s interesting in a similar vein that Japanese bloggers often don’t wish to publish their names or personal photos. Any reason why that is?
It seems that some people want to be famous in Japan, but not too famous.
May 27, 2009 at 7:12 am |
In my opinion, ‘twitter’ would be common in Japan, because nowaday information is very important. Think of a situation that I am serching a place to eat for dinner in Shinjyuku. But I have no idea for serving a good dinner. Then we can use twittering to know the best place by word of mouth.
At the point of exchanging ideas, it is good system.
But of course we should expand the number of user and advertise to be known.
May 31, 2009 at 2:27 am |
Shota,
Yes, you could use Twitter this way, though it would depend on the number of people in your group. Gathering opinions is often useful, or just letting people know that you’re there in Shinjuku looking to eat. Now if I could only get my 2 friends to go out in Shinjuku….
May 28, 2009 at 5:59 pm |
I don’t think ‘twittering’ can be a business actions in Japan company. Becasue it is like a game more than a type of business. Many people use it to take communication with friends or strangers. It has been formed into a mass medis. Morever company ‘twieetring’ said they will hold its simpleness. so I think it not orient into a formal business but it can be an expletive business site.
May 31, 2009 at 2:29 am |
Ying ying,
I think you need to look through the examples for the companies that already use Twitter. I think it’s part of the social networking phase of the virtual/electronic world, and this will affect business and people alike.