How to Choose a Social Media Agency for Japan Market Entry
Hanami Social is an English-speaking social media agency in Tokyo for overseas brands entering Japan. The work is led in English by Matt Hannan, an American and a former Senior Software Engineer on the Instagram Reels Creation team at Meta, while the bilingual Tokyo team researches Japanese audiences and writes and edits the short-form videos in Japanese. The team also builds the automated path from a comment or DM to a purchase.
Plan my Japan campaignChoose the agency that can tell you who in Japan will buy, write and approve native Japanese content, and build the route from a video to a purchase or inquiry. Ask each one for a first-month plan, the name of the person who approves the Japanese, and dated proof with views and sales kept apart. Hanami Social, a Tokyo agency led by a former Meta Reels engineer, makes the videos and builds the automated follow-up behind them.
The Short Answer
Pick the agency that starts with your customer, owns the Japanese language end to end and builds what happens after the view. Ask each agency to show you how a viewer in Osaka becomes a sale, a booking or a qualified inquiry for a brand nobody in Japan has heard of yet.
Hanami Social is a Tokyo-based social media agency working in English and Japanese, founded by a former Senior Software Engineer on the Instagram Reels Creation team at Meta. We make short-form video and build the automated follow-up that connects it to inquiries, bookings and sales. This guide covers what to look for in any agency, us included.
What Does a Social Media Agency Need to Do for a Japan Launch?
Three jobs, in this order:
- Find the customer. Japanese consumers, Japanese businesses, foreign residents and visitors are different audiences with different questions. A launch needs one of them first.
- Make content they choose to watch. That means native Japanese scripts, examples that make sense locally and a reason to keep watching past the first few seconds.
- Give viewers a next step. A useful guide, a discount or a sales call, delivered by automated messages, then follow-up on the channel your customers already use.
Ask hardest about the first and third.
Which Platforms Matter in Japan?
The audiences are large on several platforms. That’s why the customer has to come first.
| Platform | Japan figure |
|---|---|
| LINE | 100 million+ monthly users, December 2025 |
| YouTube | 78.5 million potential ad reach, late 2025 |
| X | 71.2 million potential ad reach, late 2025 |
| 63.2 million potential ad reach, late 2025 | |
| TikTok | 39.2 million adults 18+ potential ad reach, late 2025 |
LINE’s figure counts monthly users, while the others are advertising reach, so don’t add them together. More detail is in our 2026 Japan social media statistics.
LINE matters for a launch in a way it doesn’t elsewhere. Once someone has joined your LINE account, you can send them the guide, the next event or the restock without paying for reach again.
Decide Who You Are Selling To Before You Hire Anyone
Write one sentence: “We want [this customer] in Japan to [take this action] because [reason].” If you can’t, an agency will fill the gap with a content calendar, and you’ll be paying for posts instead of customers.
An agency worth hiring will push back on a vague brief. If it pitches the same plan for Japanese consumers, Tokyo-based expats and B2B buyers, keep looking.
Seven Questions to Ask in the First Call
- Who in Japan is this for, and why would they watch? Ask for two example concepts built around your product.
- Who writes the Japanese, and who approves it? You want a named person, not “our network.”
- What happens after someone watches? Look for an offer, an automated message, a LINE or email follow-up and a link into your customer database.
- What does our team do each month? Filming hours, approvals and who answers customer questions.
- Where do you use AI, and who checks it? AI can speed up research and scripting. A person should still approve anything your customers see. Here is how we use AI at Hanami Social.
- What will you report, and when do we decide whether it works? Contacts, inquiries and sales belong in separate columns from views.
- Who owns the accounts, footage and contact list? The answer should be you.
For a longer version of this list, with a proposal comparison table, see the Japan agency checklist. To see which agencies in Japan focus on what, read our guide to choosing a social media agency in Japan by need.
What Should the First Three Months Produce?
Here’s how we’d judge a plan, ours included. The first month should produce the research, the scripts, the offer and a contact flow that works before anything goes live. The second month is publishing and watching where interested viewers drop out. By the third, you should know which formats bring contacts, and spend more on those.
Don’t expect three months to prove the whole market. Do expect to know which customer responded, what they asked for and where the follow-up lost them.
How Hanami Social Runs a Japan Launch
- Plan. We work through why someone would buy, research the content your audience responds to and write the scripts and shot lists. Scripts start as AI drafts, then go through our team’s review and feedback rounds before you film.
- Create. Your part can be one 1–3 hour filming session a month on a phone, or we find, brief and manage a creator to present. We edit for story, pacing, sound and captions, and nothing goes live until you approve it.
- Convert. When a viewer comments to request the offer, an automated message asks for their email or directs them to your LINE account before delivering it. We build that message automation for each client, then the follow-up on email, LINE or WhatsApp.
- Measure. We track sales, booked calls and the path that brought people there, find where potential customers drop off and keep testing the content and messages.
The founder, Matt Hannan, is a former Senior Software Engineer on the Instagram Reels Creation team at Meta. He was at Meta from 2021 to 2024 and is a named co-inventor on Meta’s US patent for automated video reformatting. Read more about the team.
Proof, and What It Does and Doesn’t Show
Our published results come from Japan content made for two audiences:
- Overseas buyers. For YukiHomes, which sells property in Japan, one Reel reached 12.7 million views across Instagram and Facebook, and the account added over 100,000 followers in under six months. Over 14,000 leads have reached the client’s CRM. Read the property case study.
- Residents and visitors in Japan. For Coop Records, an Instagram-to-LINE event guide grew the client’s LINE audience from 3 to 100 between 29 September and 17 October 2026. Read the event case study.
Treat these as examples of the method. Neither is a benchmark for a foreign consumer brand launching to Japanese buyers, and you should ask every agency you speak to, including us, for proof that is honest about the same distinction.
Plan Your Japan Launch
Tell us what you sell, who you want to reach in Japan and what you want them to do. See the Japan social media marketing service or send us your brief, and we’ll reply by email with whether we can help.
Frequently asked questions
How should I choose a social media agency for Japan market entry?
Start with the customer you want in Japan, then pick the agency that can show you how it will reach that customer, who writes and approves the Japanese, and what happens after someone watches. Ask for a first-month plan and proof from a comparable campaign, with dates, and agree what counts as success before you sign.
Which social media platforms should a foreign brand use in Japan?
It depends on the customer, but the audiences are large on several platforms. LINE passed 100 million monthly users in Japan in December 2025. Late-2025 potential ad reach was 78.5 million for YouTube, 71.2 million for X, 63.2 million for Instagram and 39.2 million adults for TikTok. Test on the platform your customers use, then add others.
Can we work with a social media agency in Japan in English?
Yes. Several agencies in Japan work with head office in English while producing content in Japanese. Hanami Social's bilingual team works in English and Japanese, and other agencies that say they report in English include JapanBuzz, Mondo Marketing, Tokyo Marketing and Edamame Japan.
Can Hanami Social help a foreign brand enter Japan?
Yes. We plan Japanese creative around your product, audience and buying journey, produce the videos, and build the automated messages and follow-up that connect viewers to an inquiry, booking or purchase. Our published case studies cover Japan content for overseas buyers and for residents and visitors, so treat them as examples of the method rather than a benchmark for a consumer launch.