Different Countries, Different Social Media Preferences? A Complete Guide to Popular Platforms by Country

Marketing That Delivers 'Real Results'?

Hello! I'm Luna, a marketer at Spray, helping brands achieve successful global expansion.

As digital marketing competition intensifies worldwide, the first question brands must consider when connecting with consumers is "Where should we promote our brand?"

Simply pouring budget into marketing no longer guarantees effective results.

Instead, it's crucial to identify where target customers actually spend their time and place 'resonating content' in those spaces.

So where are the most effective 'spaces' right now?

The channels that can most strongly capture consumers' attention today are 'creator feeds' where all trends begin.

As marketing channels become increasingly personalized, we've entered an era where consumer-driven content wields greater influence.

Representative creator feeds include Instagram Reels, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and these channels serve as meeting spaces for brands and consumers in the digital environment.

However, since effective marketing channels differ by country, platform-specific strategies tailored to each nation are necessary.

In this article, I'll examine SNS platform preferences and effective marketing strategies, focusing on Korea, Japan and the US (where Korean brands are most actively expanding), and three Southeast Asian countries with high social media penetration rates.

SNS Platform Preferences by Country

1. Korea

In Korea, Instagram stands out as one of the most prominent SNS platforms.

Currently, Instagram is the nation's top social platform with over 26.44 million users, boasting an overwhelming user base.

While it initially showed growth centered on teens and twentysomethings, according to a June 2025 WilesApp・Retail survey, Instagram emerged as the most-used SNS app across all age groups from teens to those in their 40s.

Compared to the June 2024 survey where 'Band' was the most-used app among people in their 40s, Instagram's rise to first place in just one year confirms the platform's continuous expansion.

On Instagram, short video format Reels can generate high user engagement. As a visually-centered platform, brands can effectively build their image through visual storytelling using Reels and collaborations with influencers.

By partnering with micro-influencers to share product reviews or daily outfit posts, brands can naturally encourage UGC (User-Generated Content) creation.

Additionally, Instagram's shopping features allow brands to create direct purchase pathways within content, enhancing marketing efficiency.

Particularly, affiliate marketing through influencer collaborations can be an effective strategy for improving both brand awareness and conversion rates.

For example, vegan beauty brand 'Chasin' Rabbits' seeded products to numerous micro-influencers, effectively spreading brand awareness.

They further strengthened brand recognition through group buying promotions with influencer '@ramnuggi' during their early Olive Young launch period.

As a result, despite being a new brand, they achieved entry into Olive Young's Top 10 suncare rankings.

2. Japan

The success formula "promote on Instagram, sell on Qoo10" remains effective, as Instagram has established itself as a major marketing channel in Japan, with sophisticated visual-based content consumption particularly active among the 18-34 age group.

Japanese consumers traditionally have strong perceptions that 'advertisements cannot be trusted.'

Accordingly, while responses to brand advertising are relatively low, reviews and recommendations from acquaintances carry high persuasive power in Japan's trust-based society.

Therefore, UGC-based marketing using micro-influencers becomes a strategy that can deliver brand messages more naturally and persuasively to Japanese consumers.

For example, Korean color cosmetics brand 'Rom&nd' successfully gained local consumer trust in the Japanese market (where advertising credibility is low) by actively utilizing influencer seeding marketing.

At their subsequent Japan-exclusive offline pop-up store event, they demonstrated their recognition by generating such high interest that long waiting lines formed along the street from Harajuku Station to Shibuya Station.

Rom&nd established a stable presence in the Japanese market based on influencer collaborations, showing how trust-centered content strategies can work effectively with Japanese consumers.

Another SNS platform to note in the Japanese market is 'X (formerly Twitter).'

With active participation from politicians, celebrities, and various fandoms, X has established itself as a representative national platform with strengths in real-time information delivery.

Its structure, optimized for quick updates and information spread, offers the advantage of rapid content dissemination in short timeframes.

With active participation from actors, idols, and other public figures, a single comment from a celebrity can directly influence consumption trends.

The so-called 'bye-bye product' phenomenon, where products sell out immediately after popular idols mention them, is a prime example.

What are 'Bye-bye Products'?

'Bye-bye products' is a trendy Japanese neologism meaning literally "Bye-Bye products." It refers to products that gain explosive popularity through specific triggers and sell out instantly.

Based on this powerful viral capacity, brands can expect high-level brand awareness effects when developing campaigns with influencers or celebrities.

3. United States

The US remains a country where the formula "promote on TikTok, sell on Amazon" is still valid, demonstrating TikTok's significant influence.

As of 2023, TikTok's monthly adult users in the US reached approximately 82.3 million, showing very high usage rates.

TikTok grew rapidly, particularly centered on Gen Z, and is a channel with the viral power to achieve millions of views instantly with entertaining or relatable 15-60 second short videos.

This gives even new brands opportunities to increase brand awareness quickly through TikTok.

However, since there are limits to brand internal staff creating content that can generate high engagement alone, strategies to secure UGC through collaborations with relatable influencers are effective.

Additionally, since TikTok naturally creates a virtuous cycle where general users voluntarily imitate and spread content created by influencers, collaborating with TikTok creators who can produce creative, leading original videos is a key strategy.

As an actual case, indie cosmetics brand Joseon Beauty achieved significant growth through collaboration with TikTok influencer '@Sarah Palmyra.'

The video, which recorded 367,000 views on TikTok, spread through follow-up content from other influencers, and Joseon Beauty achieved first place in Amazon Black Friday's sunscreen category that year.

4. Southeast Asian Countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam)

Among various Southeast Asian countries, I examined preferred platforms focusing on the top 3 countries with high social media penetration rates (Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam).

Facebook was most commonly used across Southeast Asian markets, followed by Instagram and TikTok as major channels.

Facebook is a platform with a broad user base throughout Southeast Asia, particularly established as a community-centered channel used by all age groups in Malaysia and Vietnam. In Vietnam's case, it's actively utilized as a sales channel through Facebook groups and live commerce.

Instagram, which follows, is a platform with 20-30 year-olds as the core consumer demographic. For fashion and beauty brands especially, Instagram marketing is essential.

Consumers show high responses to sophisticated product images and authentic review content. Collaborating with micro-influencers to naturally expose products is more effective for building consumer trust.

TikTok is a rapidly growing platform centered on Southeast Asian Gen Z.

Users tend to prefer short videos combining humor and information rather than heavily promotional content, with challenges, meme-based content, and collaborations with popular creators generating particularly high engagement.

Among these, Vietnam is one of the countries with the highest TikTok usage rates, where the platform significantly influences consumer purchasing decisions.

On TikTok, short videos mixing humor and information are preferred over heavily promotional content, with challenge and meme-based content or collaborations with popular creators being very effective.

Vietnam particularly has the highest TikTok usage rate and significantly influences consumer purchase decisions.

According to Rakuten Insight research, when Vietnamese online buyers were asked "Have you ever purchased products based on influencer recommendations?" 79% of respondents said they purchase products based on influencer recommendations.

Additionally, influencer affiliate marketing utilizing TikTok Shop, which is growing rapidly in the Southeast Asian e-commerce market, can be an effective strategy.

The Core Strategy That Remains Unchanged Across Different Countries: 'This'!

While effective and preferred platforms differ by country, the key commonality across all marketing strategies is the utilization of 'influencer marketing.'

Most SNS campaigns added persuasive power to consumers based on influencers' credibility and influence, drawing attention with storytelling content that naturally incorporated brand messages.

This is precisely why brands should implement influencer seeding marketing.

Influencer's actual usage review content (UGC), perceived like recommendations from acquaintances, provides consumers with higher trust and persuasive power than direct brand advertising, while also enabling natural viral spread.

Therefore, when brands conduct SNS marketing, it's more effective to develop content-based marketing through collaborations with influencers.

So How Can You Excel at Influencer Marketing?

The method is 'collaborating with influencers who can effectively deliver our brand message.'

In the past, simply conducting large-scale seeding could achieve certain performance levels, but now that many brands are implementing seeding marketing, its effectiveness isn't as significant as before.

While large-scale seeding still has viral power, it has limitations in properly conveying brand messages.

Therefore, it's now more important to collaborate with influencers who align with brand image and tone to deliver messages with greater density.