How Japanese YouTube is Yielding Results for Brands
Here we are while every Japanese customer is digitally addicted to their phone, laptop, or tablet- Japanese companies are still spending more money on flyers than they are on social media, we cover this heavily in our March issue here and also in our most recent post on Japan Social Media Marketing.
That is all but one company, Tokyo Creative.
Started by YouTube influencer Chris Okano and the team at Red Horse Global, Tokyo Creative is an influencer agency that is putting all of its resources together to develop a network of YouTube influencers to digitally connect with consumers while helping Japanese companies do the same.
To learn more about the team at Tokyo Creative, meet some of their most famous influencers, and how to be successful on YouTube in 2018, join us on Feb 20th for a live in person forum on “How Businesses Can Use YouTube in Japan to be Successful”.
But if you just want some quick hints on how companies will be using YouTube, here are a few ideas.
As a resource for sharing news
Japanese companies still struggle with daily communications and strategic story telling, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to share what’s going on.
In this case, expect to see Japanese companies start to take the plunge into YouTube by sharing relevant news, stories, and updates on things happening in their industry.
This is a safe way for companies to test the waters of YouTube without making a big statement or large strategic investment. With this approach they can A/B test content themes and consumer engagement based on stories and go from there.
As a platform for expressing opinions
Because Japanese companies hold executives in such high regard, we might be able to see Japanese companies work with such executives to hold a series of interviews, fire-side chat sessions, and more.
This is actually a stronger strategy for engagement in Japan than it would be in the US. Here in Japan, consumers in the business world have a significant amount of respect for their superiors. Because of this, YouTube can be used as a platform for such leaders to share company direction, learnings, and where they hope to go in 2018.
To further express the value of this strategy, we’ve found specifically in B2B that content featuring Japanese business thought leaders has about a 30%-40% higher engagement rate than content using stock imagery or advertorial images.
As a resource for education
There is another movement happening in Japan aside from the explosion of YouTube and that’s the need for more education.
There is a fundamental shift happening in Japanese education and this mostly comes from the fact that current models are outdated and there is a massive need coming from consumers to learn more skills and now their bosses often are the ones to see that they find it.
For this reason, smart companies will see the trends taking place with Udemy and other EdTech platforms growing in Japan and use their YouTube channel as a resource for educating consumers on specific topics around their business that can help them improve their day to day lifestyle.
As a way to have fun
Finally, expect to see some Japanese companies go the way of popular television shows here and use their channel as a way to promote or partake in higher budgeted game show style programming.
This type of programming is extremely popular here in Japan and is important to study because it’s content such like this that Buzzfeed and other channels failed to replicate and as a result failed when it came to getting the same viral appeal that they had achieved in the states.
While this strategy might require more investment, once you have a strong understanding of your customer segments and their interests, it’s not a bad approach to take as the return on the investment will yield much higher results than the amount of time it took to develop a creative idea.
