Twitter has always had more uptake in Japan when compared to the United States, but although business use of Twitter lags behind that of the United States, it has become a major form of mobile communication and news reading/sharing.  When disaster struck and electricity went out, social media became an emergency broadcasting channel. In fact when I met those within the Liberal Democratic Party, who required all representatives of their political party to have a Twitter account in late 2009, they thought that the first and foremost use of Twitter was as an emergency channel for broadcasting.

We all know that Twitter is much more than that.  And the way that the Japanese used Twitter taught the world several things that we can all learn from:

1. Faster Than CNN

While CNN reports the news 24/7, it can’t beat Twitter in terms of speed of delivery.  While CNN was repeating the same content over and over again with infrequent updates, Twitter truly was where the news was breaking.  Indeed, in 2011 we can say that the news breaks on Twitter first.

2. The World is Listening on Twitter

I always tell people that when you tweet, you are on the world stage.  Try tweeting out a brand name, and chances are they will follow you back.  I had the experience of tweeting out how I was helping a friend’s family evacuate from Fukushima – and the next morning I was contacted by BBC to secure an interview with that family.  Imagine, the BBC crowd sourcing from…Twitter!  Media has indeed been turned on its head!

3. Hashtags are News Channels

Hashtags started out on Twitter as a way to categorize tweets and make them searchable.  I’ve always told people that Twitterville is like one huge global AOL chat room, and, indeed, we have seen the growth of various #TwitterChats that exist as public rooms that agree to meet at a certain date and time of the week.   When tragedy hit Japan, hashtags literally became news channels.  Want to find out what was happening in Japan?  Follow the #Japan channel.  From Fukushima?  There’s a #Fukushima channel for that.  Hashtags have become news channels in themselves.

4. Links are What Make Twitter Go Round

For those that still think that Twitter is still about where people talk about what they had for breakfast, you are obviously following the wrong people.  Twitter has a rich culture of link-sharing and engaging with content, and if you are looking for a way to navigate through the Internet for targeted information, there is no better way to do this than for searching for it right in your timeline of tweets.  Not only was Twitter much faster than CNN, it became and remains a news aggregator for the world.

5. Social Media in Itself is NOT an Authority

With so many tweets clogging up the hashtag “channels,” it’s hard to gauge what constitutes “authority.”  When I saw a number of tweets that mentioned that the founder of Pokemon has passed away in the tsunami, I naturally retweeted that information as a way of paying it forward and helping to spread information to those that might not have heard.  Shortly thereafter a tweet with a link proved that the whole thing was a hoax.  What tweets should we believe?  Just because it’s tweeted, it doesn’t mean it’s real.  And the authority of traditional media is sorely missed in the new Wild West of news reporting.

Japan taught us a lot about Twitter – has this changed your understanding of the power of tweets?

It’s often where your customer is at

If you wanted to sell your produce in the past, you had to go to where your audience was. With 65% of Americans using social media, there is no doubt that your audience is spending more and more time on social media.  Obviously you need to figure out which platform is appropriate for you, but there is a social networking site out there where your target customer lurks.  Chances are that platform will be Facebook, but depending on your product you might have better luck concentrating on LinkedIn.

It’s often where everyone is being social

Everybody congregated at the farmer’s market.  It was a huge social event.  So is social media. The key to being successful, therefore, is that we have to be social.  We can’t just set up a Page and expect things to happen just like you can’t just set up a stand and expect to sell.  You shouldn’t be over-pushing your product like some vendors do, but those that tend to sell a lot of produce at my local farmer’s market are those that have free fruit samples.  Not only do my kids love them, it gives us a chance to try out their products and establish a relationship with the vendors.  What is the free “fruit” that you are giving away to those who engage with your business in social media?

It gives you a chance to go direct to your customer

The advantage of social media as a marketing tool is that it allows you to go direct to your customer.  Similar to how vendors need to build trust at the farmer’s market by providing quality produce week in and week out, you too need to do the same with the amount of online conversation and recommendation apps that exist.  That’s why you should be taking advantage of what social media provides you to get to know your customer a little better.  Don’t be shy: engage.

It gives you the ability to easily establish a new brand

I actually spoke at a workshop that was co-sponsored by Tomamo-chan.  Tomamo-chan is the result of a major seed distributor realizing that Kumamoto is the leading producer of tomatoes in terms of volume in Japan, but very few consumers knew this nor were buying tomatoes specifically because they were from Kumamoto.  The seed distributor got several of the leading tomato producers to join forces and create a new brand to co-brand their products going forward.  Such is how “Tomamo-chan” was born – “Toma” coming from tomato and “mo” coming from Kumamoto.  A cutesy character was created (displayed above), and through the help of my friend Katsuyo Nakao, they were able to easily establish this brand by tweeting and launching a Facebook Page where fans could actually see, and help “Tomamo-chan” grow up.  I always say that social media provides a land of opportunity for unknown brands to make a mark in whatever marketplace they are trying to establish a presence.  By showing up in social media with a unique brand in a consistent and engaging manner, it is as easy to establish a new brand entity through social media just like it is by consistently showing up at the farmer’s market.

Case in point to drive all of this home: At the end of the presentation, a gentleman in the back of the room raised his hand to share his experience with us.  He was a watermelon farmer from the rural prefecture of Oita.  He started a Facebook Page and was sharing how watermelons were harvested by using both photos and videos.  There was nothing high-tech about what he did.  In fact, he didn’t even have any apps installed or a Facebook Ads budget.  He had some of his friends “Like” the page and it grew from there.  One day someone simply posted on the wall that they wanted to buy a watermelon, and he took the order via email.  Since then he confided he’s sold quite a few watermelons.

A tea farmer also stood up and reminded us of how much content farmers had to share – and how good it felt to share it.  The farmer reminded us of how labor-intensive and tedious a job traditional agriculture is in Japan, but that when “fans” started to “Like” his photos, it made him proud.

Yes, social media can make your company and your employees feel good too!

Sometimes we overcomplicate social media with the technology and tools that we can leverage.  If you remember that social media is the new farmer’s market and think how you would represent your company at the biggest farmer’s market in the world, hopefully you’ll see how common sense should be the cornerstone of your social media marketing strategy.

Have you ever sold a product through a Facebook Page comment?  How do you feel when someone Likes your content?  Let’s chat!

It was only a matter of time before it happened, but overwhelmed with the sudden and sometimes overwhelming impact that their tweets had on society, some Japanese celebrities are now calling on other celebrities to stop using Twitter.

As social networking websites penetrate every society around the world, every country will at some point be dealing with a variety of issues regarding invasion of privacy, employees getting fired because of their use (or perceived misuse) of social media, and even defamation lawsuits from a tweet.  In Japan, Twitter has become the rage and even Facebook is still challenged in its competition with Mixi to make deeper inroads.  From my own interviews with social media influencers in the Land of the Rising Sun, the use of Twitter seems to be split between professionals who see it as a business tool as well as teens and twenty-somethings who want to follow the latest tweets of the famous celebrities that are so ubiquitous in Japanese society – almost every television, radio, or print ad for a consumer brand seems to feature a famous celebrity.  In fact, similar to the United States, many of the passionate adopters of Twitter have been these same celebrities.

But then something happened – public demonstrations organically started from the act of one tweet from a celebrity.

Sosuke Takaoka, a 29-year old Japanese actor with more than 140,000 Twitter followers, posted a tweet on July 23 that read,

Honestly, I’ve been treated well by Channel 8 (Fuji TV), but I really don’t watch them anymore.  I often think it’s a Korean television station.  We Japanese want to see traditional Japanese shows.  Whenever I see a Korean show on the air I turn off the TV.  ^^ Goodbye.

The tweet was in reference to the popularity of Korean television drama shows on Japanese TV, but Takaoka centered his attention on one of the most popular TV networks in Japan, Fuji TV.  Furthermore, there is obvious historic tension between the two countries.  Either way, because Twitter has become the place where the news breaks in Japan as much as it does globally now, the tweet started to gain attention on what could be considered Japan’s first and still very popular social media website: the 2 Channel message board forum.  This forum is still the 21st most visited website in Japan according to Alexa.com.

The above started a chain reaction where Fuji TV began to be flooded by phone call complaints, and even new complaints from consumers were mentioned in social media because of what was perceived as poor customer service by Fuji TV who didn’t have enough operators to deal with the sudden upsurge in phone inquiries.  Some consumers called out for a boycott of companies that were advertising on Fuji TV.  Finally, on August 7th, a demonstration against Fuji TV at their headquarters was held that attracted 2,500 people.  Although that number might sound small, through the power of social media, the videos that were uploaded to the Japanese version of YouTube, Nico Nico Douga, as well as uStream have had cumulative views of more than 100,000.  The demo organizers are calling for another one on August 21 which could attract far more people than the first.

While the above is an excellent case study of how social media and our present connectivity can lead to social disorder, as we have seen recently in many parts of the world, some celebrities are calling for a boycott against Twitter.

Takashi Okamura, one of the two comedians who form the popular duo of 99, recently appeared onTV where he mentioned this tweet and said,

The problem is that you tweet.  If you don’t want to see the TV programs, don’t watch them.  Why do you have to tell everyone?  The cost of watching TV is only in the electricity that you consume, so why do you need to tweet about it?

Since the original tweet, Takaoka has had his contract cancelled by his talent agency and recently issued a public apology.  Unfortunately with the power of Twitter, many learn their lesson until it is after the fact and the damage is done.  In fact, there is a Japanese Wikipedia page that has already been created and documents the above facts called Fuji TV’s Korean Broadcasting Issue.

As I have mentioned in many Twitter blog posts, the world is watching you on Twitter.   The combination of the public nature of Twitter, the fact that most media outlets (and many companies) have their antennas tuned to our tweets, and the fact that social media has greatly accelerated the speed of communication means that no one’s tweets are safe.

The lesson to be learned, whether you are a celebrity, a business, or a professional, is that you need to create a new “public persona” and stick to it when you say anything on any social media website.  I actually speak about this in my new LinkedIn marketing book where I give the following advice:

It’s easy to say that in creating your public persona you should avoid putting certain things in your profile, but because social media is, well, social, we’re frequently tempted to say things that may catch us off our public brand. Before you post something in any social media channel that may be controversial and therefore affect your future business prospects, ask yourself the following four questions:

• Would my family approve of this?
• Would my boss approve of this?
• Would all of my customers approve of this?
• Would a court of law approve of this?

Unless you can answer “yes” to all four of these questions, keep your public persona intact by simply not posting your opinions on the Internet.

If only I had a chance to have met Takaoka-san before that tweet.

Have you had, or heard of, an instance where you or someone that you know regretted saying something in social media and are now paying the price for it?  Please share your experiences in the comments section below!

This panel is being hosted by Tribal Media House and will be moderated by Takeshi Kato, who works for the famous Japanese social consultancy Looops Communications which was founded by 1 of the top 10 social media thought leaders in Japan, Toru Saito.

Joining me on the panel will be Hayato Ikeda, also known as the “Japanese Prince of Social Media” and Umeken, who at 17 years old is already a national celebrity as the representative of the “Digital Native” generation as well as leader for the Japan Twitter Society.

If you’ve been an avid reader of my blog, you already know how I’ve written a few blog posts about my perspectives on social business in the Land of the Rising Sun:

• Facebook in Japan: Will It Blend?
• Social Media Etiquette: 6 Important Lessons Learned from One Japanese Company’s Major Twitter Mistake
• Looking for a Job? Only Twitter Applicants Need Apply.
• Twitter in Japan Update 2010 – Statistics, Video and Duck Mouth?
• 6 Proof Points that Japan is Leading the US on Twitter

I am looking forward to taking my understanding of how social business is making inroads overseas in a very different way than here in the United States and what we can learn from that.  At the same time, I am looking forward to sharing my knowledge and experience as both a social media keynote speaker as well as social media strategy consultant here in the United States.

To register for the event, please visit the tweetvite website and be on the lookout for a potential Ustream of the event!

In January of 2008 Twitter announced that the Japanese company Digital Garage had invested in them and would create an official Twitter Japan presence.  In October of 2009 Twitter announced the new release of a localized application for the Japanese cell phone market.  From January to June of 2009 it was reported that the number of users in Japan grew from about 200,000 to almost 800,000.  In March, 2010 that number jumped up to 7.52 million users and it was reported that 14% of global tweets are now originating from Japan.  But it’s more than just that: The Japanese are revolutionizing the way they use the platform by beginning to truly integrating it with their society, and in doing so starting to take a global lead on its usage.  Don’t believe me?  Here are 6 proof points that show that Japan is already leading the US:

Politics

Back in late 2009, one of the two leading Japanese political parties, the LDP, announced that all of their elected officials should have Twitter accounts.  This is equivalent to Michael Steele of the Republican Party telling all elected Republican officials that they need to have active Twitter accounts!  In reality, not every LDP official has signed on, but reading the tweets of active government officials is one reason (another one being the growth of celebrities) that explains the growth of Twitter.  It also shows how more ubiquitous the use of Twitter in Japan has become.

Television

What would you think if I told you that a major TV broadcaster liked Fox created a weekly drama based solely around a group of young people who met and created relationships from Twitter.  You’d say I was crazy?  Well, that show already exists in Japan: “Sunao ni Naranakute,” has been broadcasting on one of the major networks in Japan since April.

Telecommunications

Do you think Twitter is an application that should be pre-installed on every cell phone from your major carrier similar to applications like an email client or web browser?  Masayoshi Son recently said “If it doesn’t come with Twitter, it’s not a cellphone.”  Think he’s some crazy early adopter techie?  Nope.  He’s the CEO of Softbank, one of Japan’s largest cell phone carriers and exclusive distributor for the iPhone in Japan.  Chairman Son recently announced that a Twitter client would be available on all new cell phones distributed by Softbank, not just the iPhone.  AT&T and Verizon, are you listening?

Advertising

In the United States a lot of print ads are appearing with the Facebook or Twitter logos on them asking fans to “follow them.”  A few months ago Coca-Cola Japan took this one step further.  Traditionally Japanese TV commercials have ended with a “search for us on the Internet” text overlay in lieu of a long URL to promote campaigns or to engage with their viewers on their websites.  Coca-Cola Japan replaced the “search for us on the Internet” with “search for us on Twitter” with a keyword to lead its users to a landing page link for its campaign.  Sure, there have been targeted Twitter campaigns in the US before, but as part of a TV commercial from a Fortune 500 brand? [It's actually a funny TV Commercial so watch below if you are interested!]

Services

When a communication platform like Twitter becomes ubiquitous, new services that didn’t exist before arise to the challenge by integrating tweets into their standard service infrastructure.  This week the Japan Weather Association (JWA), the public foundation that provides weather-reporting services in Japan, announced that they would integrate tweets with their weather maps.  Because of the location-based option of tweeting, the JWA is linking tweets concerning the weather and compiling them for each region where they show the temperature.  This gives someone a unique, real-time report on the actual weather conditions in a given city without being there.  Clever idea.  Unfortunately the tweets are in Japanese, but click here to see the “Everyone’s Feelings Weather Map.”

Popular Culture

When Disney announces a Mickey Mouse application for Twitter I’ll be amazed.  But until that happens, all of the cutesy people will have to buy the Twitter application branded by that popular icon of Japanese culture, Hello Kitty.  Hello Kitty on Tappit was recently released to meet the increased demand from Japan.  FYI, yes, an English version is available from iTunes as well!

As a social media consultant who also lived in Japan for 15 years and still speaks Japanese fluently, I am personally and professionally excited about how quickly and revolutionary the trends continue to be for Twitter and Japan.  I look forward to reporting back to you periodically on the latest developments from Japan and what both businesses and professional can learn from the Japanese.

Anything here surprise you?  Learn something new?  Any other country that you know that is a global leader in using Twitter in a unique way?  Please share!

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Twitter books line the shelves at the famous Japanese electronics store Yodobashi Camera.

I just came back from a visit to Japan, where i was impressed with the growth of Twitter in the mainstream of Japanese society.  No, not everyone is using the realtime social networking platform, but considering that Japan is a society that both does its social networking primarily on the cellphone and are avid readers of the latest information through the plethora of printed magazine and newspapers that exist, the stage was set for Twitter to be successful in Japan.  And the numbers are already showing that the growth is impressive.  The interesting aspect is that its growth seems to be spawned by a wide professional demographic, not just early adopters.  In fact, while I was in Japan, Diamond Magazine, a well-respected business magazine that also represents the Harvard Business Review, did a cover story on Twitter that declared that ２０１０年は「使えない」ではすまされない, which roughly translates to mean that in 2010 you can’t say that you can’t “use” Twitter anymore.

The growth of Twitter in Japan, just like as in the United States, has been explosive.  However, as growth of Twitter in the United States seems to be slowing, it is predicted that Japan users of Twitter will grow from the 5 million users that was announced in February of this year to a goal of 10 million users by the end of the year, according to this article by the Japanese Twitter book author Masato Kogure.  This is an aggressive goal to say the least, but seeing that it is estimated that other foreign social networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook have under 1 million users in Japan, Twitter has broken out of the “foreign” mold and is taking on a distinctly Japanese flavor.  In fact, the Diamond magazine gave details on the popular social networking platform that took up 31 pages of their 150 page magazine, details in itself that would probably make a best-selling book here in the United States.

I look forward to reporting on this distinctly “Japanese” flavor of Twitter and what American businesses and professionals can learn from it into the future.  In the meantime, although the user numbers in Japan are far less than in the United States, one of the leading social media consultants in Japan, Toru Saito, pointed me to an article which showed that Japanese tweets represented 14% of all tweets worldwide.   Since Twitter worldwide users are estimated to be 75 million users, 6.7% of Japanese users creating 14% of all tweets worldwide hints that the Japanese are more active users than their average counterparts.

Moving on to the promised video in the title, I was literally walking around a popular youth culture part of Tokyo called Shibuya late at night and walked right into a symbol of the Twitter Movement in Japan without my knowing it.  First view the video, and then follow the text below it for what I found out about this cafe after I shot the video.

As it turns out, the hashtag #ahiru and the logo represent the term “ahiruguchi,” which literally means duck mouth or duck lips.  It was November 19, 2009 when a famous Japanese blogger named Matsuyou decided to change her profile photo.  The first reply to her was someone who said that they liked the photo but said she had a duck mouth.  This started off a chain reaction of people who said they actually liked the “duck mouth look,” and a new fashion trend was created.  But the story doesn’t end there!

Shortly afterwards Matsuyou (who, by the way, has more than 200,000 followers now) tweeted that she’d love to write a book on this Twitter movement, and three hours later she received an email from a publishing house.  Less than six months later, and Matsuyou’s new book “Everyone Love’s Duck Mouth!” was released.

The duck mouth look and Matsuyou have become such a boom that one of the trendy departments stores in this fashionable part of Tokyo, Parco, decided to open a cafe dedicated to the “I Love Duck Mouth” movement, and that is what you see in the video.  Not only does this cafe offer all the cutesy “Duck Mouth” cakes (like the one pictured here) and other accessories that you would expect from Japan, but if you go to this cafe after 6 P.M. you can get a discount of up to 20% based on the number of Twitter followers that you have!  Have you heard of a restaurant in the U.S. offering the same?

I’m already looking forward to my next trip to Japan and reporting to you all on the developments.  In the meantime, have you experienced Twitter in different countries other than the United States?  Do you find different countries and cultures are absorbing the social networking platform differently?  Would love to get your feedback!  日本語でのコメントもよろしくどうぞ！

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You think this is way off in the future?  Think again: this is already starting.  Here’s a case study to chew on for thought.

As you know I like to blog about events going on in social media in Japan.  As Twitter is still relatively new there, it is fascinating to see how a different culture starts adopting new technologies in their own way.  And because I speak and read Japanese fluently, I can add value in providing you with information that you may not be able to find anywhere else in English on the Internet.  Enough said.

This blog post is about EC Navi, a Japanese company who’s product and platform is the Internet: They run a price comparison site with links to E-commerce sites similar to PriceGrabber.com.  Think about it: their customers are solely on the Internet and using the Internet to make their purchases.  If everyone on the Internet is starting to spend most of their time on social media, doesn’t it make sense that E-Commerce sites like EC Navi (and PriceGrabber.com as well) will need a social media presence and need employees who understand how to utilize sites like Twitter?  Of course.

So it came as no surprise to me when EC Navi announced that they were only taking college graduate applicants who 1) applied over Twitter and 2) had at least 10 followers.  Only having 10 followers shows that it is not a popularity contest, but proof that you are actually utilizing Twitter and interacting with others.  And applying over Twitter was merely sending an @Reply to the CEO saying that you were interested.  You were then invited to a seminar to learn more about the company, and after that process 10 applicants became future employees of EC Navi.

The CEO of EC Navi, Shinsuke Usami (follow him on Twitter: @usapon), was quoted as saying that he did this as part of an experiment but was extremely pleased by the number and high quality of the candidates. He mentioned that he thought of doing this for two reasons:

1. He recently held an event for college seniors to educate them on the exciting world of the Internet and advertised it only through Twitter.  He was pleased with the number and calibre of candidates who attended this seminar and immediately thought he could take it one step further.
2. He thought it would be a great social media marketing experiment.

In our United States, we may have discriminatory laws that prevent employers from only accepting candidates from a specific Internet site.  But the fact that social media becomes more important to companies is not going to fade away.  And as we all become better and more proficient in our uses of social media, it is only a matter of time before those that use social media have an advantage over those that don’t when looking for a job.

There is also a message here to companies: experimentation is an important component of social media marketing.  Obviously, you need to have some literacy as to the etiquette and best practices of each platform so that you don’t spam social media users like in my recent case study of UCC Coffee.  But if you have an in-house social media strategist or engage with a social media consultant like myself, think up a way of experimenting with an idea and implementing it to see what the outcome is.  You may be pleasantly surprised by the results!

Have you heard of any companies exclusively hiring people over various social media channels?  Has your company attempted a social media marketing experiment that had unexpected results?  Please share!

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Social media

Today we look at the major Twitter mistake that a big Japanese company, UCC Coffee, recently did on Twitter.  What did they do wrong?  And what are the six important lessons that businesses and professionals can learn from it?

I will be honest with you that, when I am in Japan, I am an avid canned coffee drinker.  There are vending machines with canned coffee (as well as corn potage, many types of teas, and the usual sodas) on almost every street corner and train platform.  And they’re quite tasty.  UCC Coffee is one of the leading brands of canned coffee in Japan, and they are even sold in Japanese supermarkets here in the United States.  So, I’ll admit that I am their “fan”, and even this incident will not stop me from drinking their coffee.  That being said, some of their targeted Japanese demographic may think differently.

So what did UCC Coffee do?  Like everyone else in Japan, they were trying to get on the Twitter bandwagon fast.  There are presently more Twitter users in Japan than Facebook or LinkedIn users, despite the fact that Twitter is a relatively latecomer there.  However, Twitter in Japan is still in its infancy and businesses are making the same mistakes that many others made over the last few years (remember HabitatUK?) .

UCC decided to do a social media “campaign” (side note: I hate social media campaigns: social media is a commitment, not a campaign) called UCC “Good Coffee Smile” (gotta love the way Japanese companies use English in their slogans!), which in essence was a contest to get people writing essays and making art about coffee for a potential prize of $20,000.  Nothing wrong with this, right?  Exactly.  But they tried to use a social media channel, Twitter, in a way that social media was never intended for: to randomly broadcast their message in large volumes by essentially spamming innocent Twitter users.  They used an automated program so that, if someone tweeted keywords like “coffee” or “contest”, UCC would immediately send an @Reply to each user with a preset advertisement tweet related to their contest.

If this isn’t spam, what is?

It didn’t take long before many Twitter users who received these @Replies started complaining on Twitter that they were being spammed by UCC.  And two hours after the campaign had started, UCC stopped and issued an apology on their campaign’s website in a letter, where they basically admitted that they violated the rules of using Twitter.  Even though this happened on February 5, the event is still fresh in my mind as I write this to you on February 19.

So what can companies and professionals learn from UCC Coffee’s Twitter mistake?

1) Listen and Understand Social Media Before You Implement

Obviously UCC Coffee understood how Twitter worked as a broadcast tool but not how Twitter worked in the realm of social media.  Social media was developed for everyday people like you and me to avoid the types of corporate broadcasts like the type that UCC Coffee was doing.  UCC Coffee should have listened and understood Twitter or hire a social media strategist like myself to help them understand an effective way to use it.  The message for any of my potential clients or professionals is the same: listen before you implement.

2) Beware of Automation Tools

Twitter has an open API (Application Programming Interface), which has allowed a plethora of 3rd party services to be created offering both free and paid applications to help you manage your Twitter account.  Some of these services allow you to automate things like sending out Direct Messages when someone follows you or automatically following people who tweet out a keyword.  I always say if there is something that can help you automate what you can do manually in social media in the same fashion, you absolutely should use it so that you can concentrate on creating and sharing valuable content.  The problem, though, is that there are some things that you can’t automate in social media, like human communication.  When considering automation tools, think real hard as to if it makes sense or not.  Obviously, too much automation and Twitter will restrict your account.

3) Don’t Spam Social Media Users

When you send an @Reply message to someone that you do not know, you are risking that that person will report your potentially innocent tweet as spam to Twitter as well as block you from ever being able to follow you or see your tweets in their timeline.  Furthermore, just as you can see spam users, they can broadcast your spam for the world to see.  Is it really worth the risk?  I didn’t think so.

4) Don’t Rush Into Social Media

A lot of companies, for whatever reason, are rushing into social media by creating Facebook Fan Pages that nobody friends or Twitter accounts that have no followers.  Take your time: the golden rule in social media is you are never too late.  Rush yourself and the potential damage from doing wrong and being perceived as an unpopular brand is far greater than that of doing right.

5) Monitor in Real-Time

The one thing that UCC Coffee did do correctly was to monitor the situation in realtime: they closed down this campaign only two hour after it started.  All companies need to be monitoring their social media presence for a variety of reasons.  If you are embarking on a social media “campaign”, it is a no-brainer to start using Google Alerts.  However, you may want to start looking at investing in enterprise-grade social media monitoring tools like Scoutlabs, Alterian, or Radian6 to not just monitor mentions but also monitor sentiment and do analysis on a whole lot more.  If you join the Windmill Networking Facebook Fan Page, you can see that today I posted news of Alterian’s next free webinar.  Don’t have time for any of this?  Hire a social media consultant like myself to do the grunt work for you.

6) When You Make a Social Media Etiquette Mistake, the Word Spreads Virally…and Globally

Every Twitter user who tweeted back at UCC Coffee to stop spamming them spread that message to all of their followers.  Some of their followers may have ReTweeted it to their followers.  And so on.  All it takes is someone who speaks both Japanese and English like myself to tweet about this in English and you now have a global phenomenon.  Social media is global.  I learned this the hard way when I tweeted out a chance for bloggers to get a free review copy of my LinkedIn book; imagine when one of the tweets I received was from someone in the UK (who, I should add, was nice enough to help donate a few pounds to help cover the postage)!  Social media knows no borders: take that into consideration into however you plan to use it.

Have you noticed any company’s making major social media mistakes recently?  Any other lessons that you personally took away from this report on UCC Coffee?  Please share!

MySpace actually entered the Japanese market back in 2006, but it was never able to gain popularity.  Facebook launched its Japanese user interface back in 2008, and has had a slow organic growth since then.  Unfortunately, Facebook still lags way behind the leading Japanese social networking site with less than 1/10 of their membership.

Of course, still the leader in the Japanese social networking scene is Mixi, which currently boasts more than 25 million predominantly Japanese Gen Y users (note: you need to have both an invitation from a present user as well as a Japanese mobile phone to register, which limits the Mixi demographic to those residing in Japan).  If you can read Japanese, this site actually gives the real-time number of present Mixi users.  Although other sites such as Ameba, a predominantly blogging site, as well as Mobage Town and  Gree, social networking sites with lots of games (and plenty of virtual currency!) that are used primarily over the cell phone, are also very popular, Mixi is still King of the social networking sites in Japan much as Facebook is here in the United States.

If Mixi didn’t exist in Japan this would be another story, but how can Facebook compete against this predominant player in the Japanese market?  Not to mention there are some serious cultural differences awaiting this American company as they embark on their Japanese journey:

1.) Mixi Users Tend to Use Nicknames

Japanese social networking users tend to like their privacy and therefore will tend to use a nickname instead of their real name.  Facebook requires you to use your real name.  This is going to be the first wall that new Facebook users in Japan will have to overcome for it to become popular.

2) Who’s Viewed Your Facebook Profile?

We don’t know who’s viewed our Facebook profile.  Mixi users feel safe in using Mixi because they can see who has viewed their profile with the “ashiato” (“footprint”) functionality.  This is not a for-fee service like LinkedIn: it is a fundamental part of the Mixi platform that is guaranteed for all users.  Will Facebook create this functionality for the Japanese market?

3) Mixi is Community-Centric

Aligned with using nicknames, Mixi users join a lot of communities where they can learn new information all the while keeping their anonymity.  Facebook has its share of Groups, which are similar to Mixi communities, but again, there is no anonymity in Facebook.  This could potentially make it harder to create the same types of strong communities that are one of the cornerstones of Mixi.  The below quote is good food for thought here and difficult to imagine in a Facebook-scenario:

“In using the Internet to anonymously talk about their troubles, or show off their strong points, or make people laugh,” he said, “people in Japan can now interact based on what is actually being said, without worrying about who is talking.” – Tetsuya Shibui, Writer

Note that Mixi boasts more than 1 million communities among 25 milion users.  Facebook has 1.6 million “pages” among 350 million users [Facebook didn't have an official number of Groups statistic].  This should give some indication as to the relative popularity of the Mixi communities.

4) Facebook is Culturally Direct

Anyone who has done business in Japan knows that communication is done a bit more indirect there than in the United States.  Want to turn away a potential vendor?  Telling them that you’ll “think about” their proposal is the same as turning them down.  Have a guest in Kyoto who has stayed too long?  Bringing out the tea will signal that it’s time for them to go home.  You get the picture.

What is the problem with Facebook then?  From the minute you log on you are barraged by pictures of “people you may know” or social ads.  Furthermore, considering the privacy cloak of a nickname that is used on Mixi, Japanese users will wonder how often their pictures are being shown to others.  It’s one thing to search for someone that you know to connect with; displaying a picture without searching, however, may seem a bit abrupt to the average Japanese user.

The interesting thing is that the popularity of Twitter in Japan has brought two of its competitors, Ameba and Mixi, to create their own “Twitter-like” functionality.  Furthermore, as famous Japanese celebrities and politicians flock to Twitter using their real names, maybe that will set the stage for Facebook to become successful in Japan.  Will FB blend in Japan?  Only time will tell…

For an interesting read on the Japanese social networking environment and cellphone usage, please check out this excellent Slideshare presentation (note that some of the usage numbers are dated by several months):

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