Creating a Buzz Requires Credibility

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

A good friend of mine once said to me, "Credibility is hard to get but even harder to buy." When I heard this I thought it was simply genius. It's so absolutely true.

Lately, I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book, "Outliers." In one section at the front of the book, he writes about how kids get into the Canadian Major Junior A Hockey League; the premier league for children and teens hoping to become professional hockey players.

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

Gladwell writes:

You can't buy your way into Major Junior A hockey. It doesn't matter who your father or mother is, or who your grandfather was, or what business your family is in. Nor does it matter if you live in the most remote corner of the most northerly province in Canada. If you have the ability, the vast network of hockey scouts and talent spotters will find you, and if you are willing to develop that ability, the system will reward  you.

Gladwell then goes on to point out that there's a lot of luck and being in the right place at the right time is so important towards becoming successful... But he also delves deeply into working at success and dedicating time and effort practicing and honing one's skills.

I'd like to point out that if a kid gets into Major Junior A hockey in Canada, then that kid gets "status." With Major Junior A hockey comes credibility. And this credibility is impossible to buy.

It's the same when you are trying to build a buzz for your product or service... Credibility is crucial. Without credibility, you will never build a long-term lasting success. Quality is crucial to credibility.

Not only is this critical for other people's perceptions, but it is also, I think, the deciding factor for yourself and your team. Think about this: If you or any of your team member's are not 100% sold on your idea, product or service; If you do not have complete and total faith in what you are doing, then you will have doubt in the back of your mind somewhere...

This doubt, no matter how small, will do great damage to your efforts so the elimination of this doubt is so important... This is where, even more than what others think, what you think, in your heart and in your sub-conscious, is critical. You must believe in what you are doing to be successful. It is even written in the bible, "Belief can move mountains."

I've told this to many people that I work with; creating a buzz and almost everything else we do is a form of sales. In sales, I must believe in my product absolutely to be totally effective. Why? Because sales is not a transference of data. If it were just passing along facts, then car salesmen could sell the best cars with a copy of a pdf. But it doesn't work that way. Sales is a transference of emotions. I, the salesman, must transfer my excitement and belief about my product to you, the customer. You must get excited about what I have to sell.

I have to believe. You have to believe. This is the key to sales (and creating a buzz)!  

I am now working with partners on promoting tourism to a former Eastern Block country in Europe. In some circles, this promotion has been extremely difficult. Why? Because twenty years ago, this country was involved in a civil war and many Japanese people still have the image of war when they think of this nation.

We have to change that image among the Japanese. Maybe you have guessed the name of this country already.... A war 20 years ago in Europe? Yes. It had to be one of the countries in former Yugoslavia. I'm talking specifically about Croatia.

Actually, Croatia is nothing like the image that many Japanese people have; a cold and dreary former Soviet Bloc territory. Croatia has a rich history; formerly part of the Hapsburg Empire; formerly Rome. Croatia's tourism promotional copy is "The Mediterranean the way it used to be." Croatia has 7 world heritage sites, glorious architecture, fantastic gourmet (including seafood) and more! See some sites here.

But some Japanese still have the image of war.

Recently, two things have greatly helped us to gain trust and credibility among the Japanese. One has been the push from Japanese travel agents for Japanese tourists to visit Croatia. It really helps to show people the tourism and travel brochures made by reputable Japanese companies like Japan Airlines (JAL), All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) recommending Croatia. I mean, if Croatia weren't safe, they certainly wouldn't recommend it.

Regent Esplanade Zagreb

But the most recent thing that I think will be the watershed moment for Croatia tourism will be this December. From this December, Tokyo FM (TFM) will run a station-wide promotion on air and on the Internet (this will include, of course, SNS, blogs, Twitter, Pick, Mixi and Facebook!) The promotion will be for three lucky couples to win a vacation to Croatia including airfare and hotel....

The hotel stay is at one of the most prestigious hotels in all of Europe! It's the Regent Esplanade Zagreb. See photos here that will drop your jaw.

See more photos of the Regent Esplanade Zagreb here

There's not a person in Japan over the age of 18 who hasn't heard of Tokyo FM. Tokyo FM is the flagship station of a 34 station Japan-wide FM network. Tokyo FM is prestige.

Will Croatia become the huge buzz and "place to be" amongst the Japanese within the next two years? That remains to be seen, but Tokyo FM accepting Croatia as a partner for a big Christmas campaign gives Croatia the respect and credibility Croatia needs. With this credibility in hand, it is the final critical factor needed to build the buzz among the Japanese who like to travel.

Now, with this credibility, they can get to work on building a buzz.
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Get High Google Rankings: Blog and Write Everyday!...

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

It is my purpose to get my name and the name of my company and service out to the public in the most effective way possible; and the best way to do that is to use the Internet. The Internet is targeted marketing and media and it allows me to focus my message to the audience; and it does it for free. I cannot think of a cheaper price than free, can you? 

I go to the Internet to get great information with a focused message; and I get that information for free. I hope that this is the same reason some of you good folks come to see me everyday. I'm trying to give you all tips on how to empower yourselves and increase your business in Japan everyday. 


One reader asked me how it was possible that I was able to get my name at #1 on a Google search if someone merely searched "Mike" and "Tokyo" (remember that there are millions of foreigners in this country and there's been many many famous Mike7s to come here; think Mike Tyson in Tokyo, etc., etc.) Well, let me tell you that you can do the same thing too! You can get high rankings on a Google or Yahoo search in the most cost effective way possible. But, just starting a blog or a vlog and letting sit there isn't going to do it.


You can either buy search words like BP did for "Oil Spill" etc., or, if you are on a limited budget, then you can put in the effort. Elbow grease is the answer, my friends!  


I believe that the only way to get great Google or Yahoo search results is to keep hammering away at putting out a lot of good quality stuff on a consistent basis. You must keep at the blogging and writing and to continually put up good quality, useful stuff, for your readers. You need to put up new information at least 3 times a week and you need to keep the message focused.


But how to keep the message focused? That could be tough, especially if there are so many topics that interest you. Like me. I'm interested in many things Japan. So I write for three different places; my blog, my company blog, and on wwwlewrockwell.com 


This blog (my blog) is targeted to foreign businessmen wanting to sell their products and services in Japan to the Japanese... Only. (If that seems obvious or absurd, realize that there are many foreigners in Japan trying to sell their products and services to the other foreigners living here. I do not deal with those). That's why this blog is called, "Modern Marketing Japan." 


On my company blog, Universal-vision.jp, I mirror items on this blog, but I also place Japanese language news releases there too. Here's a recent example. The final place that I try to blog consistently is at Lew Rockwell. Lew Rockwell is the most read Libertarian site in the world and ranked by Alexa in the Top 15 of the most read sites in the entire world. 


Blogging, making YouTube videos, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Mixi and doing U-Stream are all important but remember that just setting up a blog or a YouTube channel and then putting up new information on it once a month or once every two months is just not going to get you the results you need. You need to put up new blogs, information or videos at least three times a week.


As David Meerman Scott wrote in the bible of new media marketing, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, when he quoted the president of The Concrete Network;


"You need to think about how a series of one hundred news releases over two years will benefit your business and then commit to it, understanding that nothing is an overnight thing." 

Of course, this is all a part of my ever continuing opinion that, if you want to succeed in Social Media, Marketing and the Internet, then you must continually produce content by writing and on your own blog and give it away for free. 


Write a lot but keep messages focused... By the way, I have another new article on Lew Rockwell about silly things in Japan here.


I hope you get a laugh.




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Twitter a hit in Japan as millions 'mumble' online

I just found this on AP and, since I post about Twitter and Social Media so much, I thought I'd post it as is.

Twitter a hit in Japan as millions 'mumble' online

Twitter a hit in Japan as 'mumbling' tweeters give micro-blogging a distinctly Japanese flavor 

Twitter is a hit in Japan, succeeding where other social networking imports like Facebook have foundered as millions "mumble" -- the translation of tweet -- and give mini-blogging a distinctly Japanese flavor.

The arrival of the Japanese language Twitter service in 2008 tapped into a greater sense of individuality in Japan, especially among younger people less accepting of the understatement and conformity their culture is usually associated with, analysts say.

A mobile version of Twitter started last October, further fueling the Twitter boom in a nation where Internet-connecting cell phones have been the rule for years.

These days, seminars teaching the tricks of the tweet, as the micro-blog postings are known, are popping up. Ending Japanese sentences with "nah-woo" -- an adaptation of "now" in English -- is hip, showing off the speaker's versatility in pseudo-English Twitter-speak.

A TV show features characters that tweet. A Tokyo bar has screens showing tweets along with World Cup games. And pop idols, a former prime minister and plain regular people are all tweeting like crazy.

The proportion of Japanese Internet users who tweet is 16.3 percent and now surpasses the ratio among Americans at 9.8 percent. Twitter and Japan's top social networking site, mixi, have been running neck-and-neck with monthly visitors between 9 million and 10 million but in April Twitter squeaked past mixi, according to ratings agency Nielsen Online.

In contrast, only 3 percent of Japanese Internet users are on Facebook compared with 62 percent in the U.S., according to Nielsen. MySpace has also failed to take off in Japan, at under 3 percent of Net users versus 35 percent in the U.S., according to comScore Inc.

Twitter estimates Japanese write nearly 8 million tweets a day, or about 12 percent of the global total. Data from Tweet Sentiments, a web site that analyzes tweets, show Japanese are sometimes tweeting more frequently than Americans.

"Japan is enjoying the richest and most varied form of Twitter usage as a communication tool," says Daisuke Tsuda, 36, a writer with more than 65,000 "followers" for his tweets. "It's playing out as a rediscovery of the Internet."

One reason is language. It's possible to say so much more in Japanese within Twitter's 140 letter limit. The word "information" requires just two letters in Japanese. That allows academics and politicians to relay complex views, according to Tsuda, who believes Twitter could easily attract 20 million people in Japan soon.

Another is that people are owning up to their identities on Twitter. Anonymity tended to be the rule on popular Japanese Web sites, and horror stories abounded about people getting targeted in smear-campaigns that were launched under the shroud of anonymity.

In contrast, Twitter anecdotes are heartwarming. One well-known case is a woman who posted on Twitter the photo of a park her father sent in an e-mail attachment before he died. Twitter was immediately abuzz with people comparing parks.

So far, people are flocking to Twitter in positive ways, reaching out in direct, public and interactive communication, debunking the stereotype of Japanese as shy and insular, says Noriyuki Ikeda, chief executive of Tribal Media House, which consults on social media marketing.

"Twitter is turning out to be like a cocktail party," he told The Associated Press. "Japanese see how fun it is to network and casually connect with other people."

Twitter is also proving a good business tool. Companies are exploring Twitter as a way to reach consumers and get feedback, a function that holds potential in Japan where broadband connections are widespread and cheap, and mobile phones outnumber the population.

Retailer Tokyu Hands uses Twitter to answer queries from customers, while clothing-chain Uniqlo has used Twitter in marketing by setting up a virtual queue where people tweet with each other and get freebies.

Motohiko Tokuriki, chief executive of consultant Agile Media Network, who has nearly 200,000 followers, believes Twitter is on its way to be chosen the hit new word of the year, a coveted honor that draws great publicity here.

"It's telling that Twitter was translated as 'mumbling' in Japanese," he said. "They love the idea of talking to themselves," he said.

Twitter may even offer Japan's web entrepreneurs global opportunities that had so far eluded them because it's the first digital "global-standard" outside of search engines like Google or Yahoo! to catch on here, says Toru Saito, chief executive of Loops Communications, which specializes in social networking businesses.

That means software applications Japanese develop for Twitter could win acceptance from a global market. Japanese mobile software products have tended to be for Japanese up to now.

"I'm getting so many queries, including those from abroad," Saito said.

Rocky Eda, corporate communications manager for Digital Garage, which supports Twitter's Japan operations, is thrilled people are embracing Twitter.

"In finding fulfillment in expressing what's on your mind for the moment, Twitter is like haiku," he said. "It is so Japanese."

(Article from AP see here)

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