One of the biggest mistakes Hyves made was that it stuck to the campaign advertising model for too long, while Facebook's strength lay in the branded Facebook pages. The recent introduction of “free” branded Hyves and fan pages on Hyves will not turn the tide. Let’s just say it’s like putting mustard after the meal. I do agree with Yme Bosma that Hyves is still larger than Facebook in terms of user numbers. But what is much more important: they have lost their top-of-mind position with advertisers. And that is what it is all about in the end. As analyst Marshall Manson of Edelman Digital recently pointed out : “In Germany and the Netherlands, the Last Local Champions Fall”. Hyves in the Netherlands and StudioVZ in Germany are the last local social network champions in Europe. But it won’t be long before Facebook will dethrone them too. The only question is when.
Facebook is here to stay
In short: the Facebook era has also arrived in full force in the Netherlands latvia phone number list Without sounding too cliché, I think that many brands will no longer be able to ignore Facebook as a marketing platform. And despite the fact that we are a relatively small market in Facebook terms, I am convinced that Facebook will also establish its market dominance here. Mobile will play a hugely important role in this. I also have high expectations for the introduction of Facebook Deals , linked to Facebook Places. This could become a formidable competitor for all Groupon-like services. I am therefore going to make two predictions here that you can remind me of again in a year: 1) Facebook will be bigger than Hyves in a year and 2) Facebook pages will also become more important than brand websites in the Netherlands.
I do notice that both advertisers and media and creative agencies are still a bit lost with Facebook and are not yet aware of what they can do with it. Especially writing good content and managing your fans seems to be very difficult. Creative Merlijn van Vliet recently wrote a nice column about it . In a number of follow-up articles I will go deeper into various elements of marketing within Facebook. Topics that will be discussed include: how do you set up a good Facebook page, what are the success factors for a Facebook campaign or app, what role do analytics play within Facebook and how do you deal with content and community management. So stay tuned!
Also read the other articles in this series .