Here we go again. Last year it was Microsoft’s Bing capitalising on the #SupportJapan campaign in the wake of the earth quake and tsunami there and then we had fashion designer Kenneth Cole riding on the coattails of #Egypt.

Digitally, Japan is now more ‘socially’ integrated than ever. Now is the best time for western brands to promote themselves in the same way they do for other nations. Here are 5 reasons why. Read More »

Twitter has always been big in Japan, where it leads Facebook, and it is looking to cement that position as it signs a strategic partnership with the country’s biggest social network Mixi.

Along with the UK, where Twitter today announced it has hired Bruce Daisley from Google as its first UK commercial director, Japan is one of Twitter’s core markets. Japanese was the first foreign language to be added in 2008 and its users are very active as witnessed by the March 11 earthquake in Japan. Read More »

Have you ever had a friend request that you just let sit in your inbox for a while as you mulled over whether or not to ‘accept’? Maybe it was someone you weren’t quite sure met your ‘friend requirement’. Or maybe it was someone you had heard of, but didn’t really know very well.

Japan has felt the same way about Facebook since it launched here in 2008. Awareness is high of course, but Japanese weren’t ready to accept Facebook into their social media milieu – which consists of powerhouses such as Mixi, Twitter and gaming site Gree, each in the neighbourhood of 20 million users. Read More »

Social media has had a large part to play in driving donations towards relief efforts to help those affected by the tsunami in Japan. Some have been received well, like the initiative by LivingSocial that matched users’ $5 donations to give more than $2m to relief efforts. Others have sparked accusations of profiteering from human tragedy, such as the ill-judged attempt by Bing to link donations to retweets using the #SupportJapan hashtag. Read More »

Straight from the Kenneth Cole School of Capitalising On Human Suffering To Promote Your Brand comes Bing‘s #SupportJapan campaign, which this weekend offered to donate $1 to Japanese earthquake victims each time their original post was retweeted.

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A new Person Finder tool has been launched by Google in response to the massive earthquake and tsunami which has hit Japan. Read More »