Instagram in Japan in 2020
Instagram remains one of the most significant social networks in the world and continues to be huge in Japan.
On November 26, 2020, Facebook Japan held their House of Instagram online seminar event, going over the latest usage statistics and behaviors on the platform. We’ve summarized some of the information here.
Instagram’s global user announcement
In the 10 years since its launch, Instagram now has 1 billion monthly active users.
The Japan market
The Japanese market is said to have more than 33 million monthly active users. This number hasn’t been updated in a while as this was the same number announced last year at Instagram Day Tokyo 2019.
Japan is an important and unique market for Instagram, Facebook Japan CEO Masahiro Amizawa said. In fact, Japan holds their only development team outside of the United States.
Instagram users in Japan have a high rate of searching via hashtags
In addition to browsing and discovery, users in Japan use Instagram for search purposes more than users in other markets. Compared to the global Instagram user average, users in Japan search via hashtags 5X more.
This makes Japanese hashtag strategy very important for brands.
Instagram users in Japan have a high rate of seeking shopping information
Another point of difference is that Instagram users in Japan seek shopping information more.
Utilizing functions such as Instagram’s shopping tags, users in Japan are 3X more likely to look at product details compared to users in other countries.
Not utilizing shopping tags or having them link to a non-Japanese eCommerce site is a wasted opportunity.
Maintaining organic posts is important to provide further information
It’s also worth noting that advertising to Japan from a global account isn’t enough. 42% of users who become interested in a brand will visit the brand’s profile in search of more information.
Many international brands in particular will often advertise in Japanese but from a single, global account, with all the posts written in a foreign language. This potentially cuts off the interest cultivation in the Japanese user.
Japan-first Developments
Three functions that began in Japan were highlighted, developed due to behavior in the market.
Instagram’s account QR code
Account QR code
This allowed users to quickly connect in a market where scanning QR codes was already more common.
Instagram’s event tagging
Event tagging in in-feed posts
Visually similar to shopping tags, event information can be tagged inside of in-feed posts. This let users set reminders to be notified 15 minutes before its start. It was tied to high usage of the Instagram Live function.
Instagram’s seasonal topics
Seasonal topics
A list of 10 hashtags around topics beginning to trend are curated. This is due to Japanese users’ searches by hashtags being 5X the global average, cultural affinity for seasons and trends, and their strong desire to know what’s currently happening.
And yes, we do provide international brands with Instagram marketing services in Japan.
