One of my students conducted this focus group to find out about popular posts and here are the major findings
1. Japanese people are not actively react on commercial posts because they think it is a waste of time and troublesome unless there is a huge incentive such as 50% discount coupons.
2. They do not like others to see what they comment or LIKE on commercial posts since they are afraid of other’s thinking they are desperate to get discounts.
3. People prefer a casual and friendly message rather than a polite message with keigo (=honorifics). They like a casual message because they feel more close to the message. The more they feel close, the more they want to react back on the post.
4. The picture that is not easy to understand at sight is favored. Because easy ones do not need to stop and take time to see what they are about. Hence people are likely to skip such kind of pictures. If the picture is complicated, people tend to take time to see what is inside the picture.
5. Most of people skip a message without pictures since a picture is one that catch their eyes. A message with less than 3 lines with a complicated picture are likely to be reacted by Japanese.
6. Celebrities such as singers, actors and actress are the huge incentives for Japanese to follow a post. This is seen in many occasions such as TV commercial in Japan. Most of TV commercial have famous celebrities. It is not often seen in American commercial.
