Hisami Ohshiba to Speak at Sendenkaigi Publication’s “Social Media Marketing” Seminar – Feb. 24th (Tokyo)

Hisami has been invited to speak at a seminar, Social Media Marketing Seminar on Feb. 24th in Tokyo, hosted by advertising industry publication “Sendenkaigi.” The seminar, held from 1:00 to 6:15pm, will include the following four presenters:

• Naoki Ito, Executive Creative Director, Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo
• Noriyuki Ikeda, President/CEO, Tribal Media House, Inc.
• Hisami Ohshiba, Managing Member, JaM Japan Marketing LLC
• Takao Chitose, Consumer Marketing/Marketing Communications Manager, Dell Japan

Attendees will learn how companies can examine and better integrate social media into their marketing, and for agencies, how to better incorporate social media into their clients’ marketing plans, through learnings from both domestic and overseas case studies. The seminar will flow as follows:

Step 1: Learn about the latest U.S. case studies and important points for Japanese companies when adopting and implementing similar strategies.
Step 2: Hear from successful marketers about the challenges of social media.
Step 3: Creative content that is supported by social media and fosters positive reputation.

Who should attend: those working in advertising, PR, or marketing at companies and organizations, who are thinking about utilizing social media or are in charge of social media; those involved in sales and planning at advertising agencies who are tasked with proposing social media plans.
Registration fee: 29,800 yen
Attendance: limited to 60
Venue: 313 Minami Aoyama Bldg

For more information (in Japanese) visit the event page at Sendenkaigi and register here for materials.

US NetMarketing Nikkei Feb. 1 Column: Giving, the Social Marketing Keyword

The Feb. 1 Nikkei BP Column in NetMarketing Online (in Japanese) “US NetMarketing Chawa” titledGiving, the Social Marketing Keyword” covers how social media helped disseminate information and spur giving to Haiti’s earthquake victims, through cell phone text messaging, Twitter and Facebook. It also analyzes Pepsi’s move to skip its 23-year history of Super Bowl ads in favor of a $20 million social media campaign, Pepsi Refresh Program as its new marketing strategy. Below is an excerpt of the column, which is found here (in Japanese).

Feb. 1: Giving, the Social Marketing Keyword

Social Media becomes hub of information and generates huge WOM for aid to Haiti

According to social media research company Sysomos, Tweets that included the keywords “Haiti” or “Red Cross” reached 23 million during the three days between January 12 – 14, of which 59% were Retweets. Texting “Haiti” to 90999 on cell phones allowed people in the U.S. to donate 10 dollars to Red Cross, which would be billed to people’s phone accounts. Among the Tweets, there were 189,024 mentions of the Red Cross text to 90999 for donations to Haiti, showing how word of mouth by so many helped spread the message. Nielsen’s BlogPulse Jan. 15th data on U.S. blogs indicated that 3% of all blogs involved posts about the Haiti earthquake.

The column continues (in Japanese) here.

US NetMarketing Nikkei Column: Jan. 12th “Social Media – Ringing Out the Old Year, Ringing In the New Year”

Happy New Year!

The latest monthly Nikkei BP Column, NetMarketing Online (in Japanese) “US NetMarketing Chawa” Jan. 12th column titled “Social Media – Ringing Out the Old Year, Ringing In the New Year” reviews how social media changed how people communicated this past year. It was big news on Dec. 8 when Dell announced that Twitter alone brought in $6.5 million in sales over the past 2-1/2 years. You could say during the last year, social media’s use for business marketing became firmly established, and social media’s importance will continue to rise this year. The column (in Japanese) begins as below.

Jan. 12 “Social Media: Ringing Out the Old Year, Ringing In the New Year“

Facebook’s Population 3rd in the World After China and India

2009 can be simply put as “the year social networking went mainstream.” In the U.S., social media played a role in many aspects: in society – it transformed how people communicated with each other; in politics – it brought democracy in communication as demonstrated by Obama’s administration and Iran’s presidential elections, and in business – it created a platform where business and consumers could communicate in real time. Facebook, with 350 million active users worldwide, now ranks third in the world in terms of population after China and India. Active users in the U.S. alone passed 100 million as of Dec. 7, 2009, and according to the Hitwise study, “Top 10 Social Network Sites & Forum Sites,” Facebook clearly surpassed MySpace and functions as the online destination and utility for nearly 50% of Americans. (The column continues in Japanese.)