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[SINGAPORE] If you’re planning to grow a business in Japan and you’re betting on LinkedIn, you might want to take a beat. Despite what global playbooks tell you, LinkedIn is still a niche platform in Japan.

The numbers paint a stark picture: LinkedIn has roughly five million users in a country of over 125 million people – that’s just 4 per cent of the total population. A bit of quick and dirty arithmetic shows that even among Japan’s 16 to 65-year-olds, which consists of around 70 million people, LinkedIn only has a market penetration of 7 per cent.

In comparison, LinkedIn has 260 million users in the US and nearly 350 million across Asia-Pacific. If Japan looks like an outlier here, that’s because it is.

Instead of LinkedIn, much of Japanese business networking runs on a surprising platform: Facebook.

Yes, the same Facebook that’s been steadily hollowed out in Western markets. Also the same Facebook where birthdays, babies and political shouting matches dominate the feed.

But in Japan, Facebook never stopped being a place where you could be serious.

So what does this mean for companies from overseas trying to do business in the country?

Real names, real results

An early cultural mismatch is part of how Facebook became a networking tool in Japan.

The Japanese-language version of Facebook was launched in 2008, and those signing up for the platform had to use their real names. But this requirement was at odds with how Japanese people were using social media at the time: 75 per cent preferred to use a pseudonym online.

However, among professionals who had already met in person, Facebook gradually became a way to stay in touch and signal trust, because it fit the country’s existing norms around relationship-building.

People connect on Facebook after they meet in person at an event, over a meal, or through a trusted introduction. The platform became the natural post-meeting handshake and evolved – quietly but persistently – into a working professional tool.

Over the last 20-odd years, I’ve seen Facebook Messenger act as a kind of stealth business-to-business platform in Japan. Meeting follow-ups, business updates, partnership pitches and even job offers – all of this flowed through the platform in one way or another.

Not because there’s no alternative, but because this is what people trust. It’s personal, persistent, and rooted in real relationships.

That’s what makes LinkedIn’s position in Japan so awkward.

When the platform launched in the country, its branding as a recruitment tool put it behind the eight ball from the outset. If someone was on LinkedIn a decade ago, you would have assumed they were looking to jump ship – a proper red flag in Japan’s loyalty-centric corporate culture.

That perception has been hard to shake, even as LinkedIn has moved towards broader professional branding and content sharing. While there’s no doubt it’s growing, it’s still niche, especially among monolingual local professionals and companies with a purely domestic focus.

What emerged instead is a fragmented but functional B2B stack.

In Japan, Facebook remains the soft touchpoint for introductions and identity. With around 97 million monthly active users, Line dominates real-time chat and is deeply embedded in consumer relationships and campaign mechanisms. X (formerly Twitter) is generally a great pulpit for thought leadership, but anonymity limits its usefulness in business contexts.

Platforms such as Eight or Sansan are pushing to digitise the old-school business card exchange. Wantedly and BizReach play well in recruitment, but they don’t function as broad networking ecosystems.

And Note, a key Japanese blogging platform often overlooked by new market entrants, can prove to be a surprisingly effective format for publishing longer-form company updates, establishing brand narratives, and potentially attracting new hires.

The networking playbook

If you’re coming from South-east Asia and networking in Japan for the first time, it can be disorienting. In markets such as Singapore or Indonesia, LinkedIn is often the first step, not the fallback.

In many countries, outreach, prospecting and even pitching can be done cold, digitally and at scale. But that’s rarely the case in Japan, where relationships lead the technology, not the other way around.

A meeting might be formal, but the follow-up comes on Facebook Messenger. A chief executive officer might ignore a LinkedIn InMail because they don’t log onto the platform regularly, but they respond quickly on Facebook after being introduced over dinner.

An investor might read your whitepaper on LinkedIn but expect updates via Line. It’s not inefficient, just different – if you can’t tune into that rhythm, you risk talking past the people you’re trying to engage.

Of course, Facebook has its limits and its reach is fading, even in Japan. Younger professionals are less likely to default to it, but that hasn’t stopped it from being effective. Because in Japan, it isn’t the platform alone that matters – the context of connection is important, too.

Trust, proximity and familiarity are the currencies of Japanese business, and the tools used to build them are incidental.

This is often overlooked in many go-to-market strategies for Japan. Where other companies think in terms of platforms, Japanese business thinks in terms of people.

Cold outreach campaigns, growth hacks and scaled messaging funnels hit a wall fast if they aren’t grounded in relationships. If you’re trying to break into Japan with a funnel that skips the human layer, you’ll find yourself circling, not landing.

The B2B stack

That being said, what does work?

First, Japan remains a predominantly face-to-face market. The handshake, the shared drink, and the context are not optional extras, but the foundation.

If you can’t be here yourself, make sure someone you trust is. Business development doesn’t happen over the wire or online, but in rooms.

Second, treat Facebook as a business tool. That means keeping a presentable profile, having a localised corporate page in Japanese that posts regularly, and knowing when to follow up.

You must respect the unspoken rules of connection. Don’t add someone before you’ve met. Don’t pitch before you’ve earned the right to. But once you’re in, nurture the relationship.

Third, build a stack that reflects reality.

Use official accounts on Line for quick chats and customer engagement. Explore Note to anchor your corporate presence in the broader ecosystem.

Even posting in Japanese on X would be a smart move for companies in the country. Campaigns work well on this platform too, if executed well.

Of course, don’t dismiss LinkedIn. It’s great for reaching out to bilingual job candidates and those in international-facing roles.

However, don’t think that going all in on LinkedIn ads will have a significant impact on your bottom line in Japan. It most likely won’t, not in the same way it might overseas – at least not yet.

Finally, calibrate your expectations: Japan doesn’t reward speed, but consistency and persistence. Just look at the degree of patience it took Nestle to crack the market.

The return comes not from one campaign or several in a year. Instead, it comes from consistently showing up year after year, until familiarity breeds trust.

It might seem counterintuitive to double down on a platform that much of the world considers outdated. But business isn’t about following what’s trending, it’s about what works.

More often than not, what works in Japan defies conventional wisdom elsewhere. Facebook, for all its limitations, still plays a central role in the social mechanics of business relationships in the country.

Paul Ashton is the head of global sales for Japanese eGift solutions company giftee Inc and founder of Tokyo-based market entry firm Ulpa. The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Tech in Asia. [TECH IN ASIA]