5/5 (1)

For this article, I am diving into my time as a teenager, a time even before Facebook. Many Dutch students will know Hyves. Hyves was a social networking site in The Netherlands with mainly Dutch members. It was founded in 2004, and in 2010 it had more than 10.3 million accounts, including my account (and also including double and inactive accounts). But, Hyves was competing with other social networks such as Facebook and MySpace and in 2013, the social network was officially discontinued. How did this happen and what could have prevented this?

As you can see in the graph below, Facebook gained more members than Hyves in 2011. However, in 2012, the buzz around Facebook exploded. More and more Dutch people started actively using Facebook and neglecting Hyves. But why did Dutch people stop using Hyves? The answer is simple: Facebook was an international oriented social network and Hyves was only active in The Netherlands. People with international family and friends soon started to switch from Hyves to Facebook which resulted in more people switching. This created a continuous cycle of people leaving Hyves which eventually resulted in the discontinuation of the social network.

 

Average number of daily posts/messages on Facebook and Hyves in The Netherlands.

To apply this to the discussed theory during the lectures, Facebook faced huge positive network effects and the network effects of Hyves were way smaller because of the limited scope. With network effects, more users mean more value which then means more users and so on. Once the buzz around Facebook exploded, nothing could have stopped the increasing usage of Facebook and therefore the decreasing use of Hyves.

But was there anything Hyves could have done to prevent this?  One solution could have been to expand to other countries sooner. In 2010, Telegraaf Mediagroep bought Hyves for €43 million with the purpose of expanding the social network. However, this was already too late and the investment turned out to be a terrible investment. If they had decided to expand earlier, this may have prevented Facebook from getting so big but I doubt that this would have worked.

For those who are curious about what happened to Hyves after the discontinuation, it is now called HyvesGames. The name already makes it clear but nowadays, you can play games on this website.

 

Sources

Drees, A. (2013). Facebook versus Hyves dat is schrikken. Recruitment matters. Retrieved from http://recruitmentmatters.nl/2012/01/24/facebook-versus-hyves-dat-is-schrikken/

Jaarsma, R. (2012). Wat leren hyves en myspace ons over sociale netwerken. Sync. Retrieved from http://sync.nl/wat-leren-hyves-en-myspace-ons-over-sociale-netwerken/

Weidema, N. (2017). HR en social media maken organisatie wendbaarder. PW. Retrieved from http://www.pwnet.nl/organisatie-strategie/nieuws/2017/9/hr-en-social-media-maken-organisatie-wendbaarder-10125266

Wokke, A. (2013). Hyves gaat definitief offline. Tweakers. Retrieved from https://tweakers.net/nieuws/92928/hyves-gaat-definitief-offline.html

5/5 (5)

According to recent research by Gartner, in 2020, 85 percent of customer interactions will be managed by AI. According to research by PR-agency Weber Shandwick, the impact of AI on marketing and communication will be greater than that of social media. These studies show that AI has and will have a big impact on marketing and customer interaction. AI enables companies to approach customers more personally, giving them a better brand experience. Two major developments of AI in marketing are chatbots and personalization.

Chatbots

Chatbots with tasks such as customer service are a well-known example of AI in marketing. They are not only useful for communicating with the customer, they also offer the opportunity to gather feedback from customers. Additionally, the chatbot can analyze this feedback and other information it gathers from customers. This will give the company more insight into what customers actually want. This results in a better understanding of the customer which can be applied to the marketing strategy by making it more focused on customer’s needs.

Tommy Hilfiger was one of the first major fashion brand to experiment with a chatbot. Their main goal was (and still is) to attract traffic to the website and to create a personalized customer experience. The Tommy Hilfiger bot will help you identify your style and gives styling advice.

 

Personalization

AI can also help to enhance visitor experience by personalizing the website. By analyzing data about a single user, AI can display the best-fitting offers and content on the website. Besides, push-notifications can be specifically delivered to individual users, delivering them the right message at the right time. According to the 2017 Real-Time Personalization Survey by Evergage, 33% of marketers already use AI to deliver personalized website experiences.

An example of personalization, which was also discussed during the lecture of the eleventh of September, 2017, is Pandora internet radio. Pandora uses machine learning algorithms to offer customized listening choices based on your personal tastes. In this way, Pandora goes beyond obvious song suggestions and reveals choices that you might have never discovered.

 

In a time where customers are increasingly demanding personalization and 24/7 services, it is useful to use AI to enhance the marketing strategy and customer experience. By implementing a chatbot, a company can learn more about the needs of a customer. In this way, they can tailor the marketing efforts to these needs. Besides, AI can help to enhance visitor experience with personalization of the website.

 

Sources:

https://www.emerce.nl/opinie/artificial-intelligence-nieuwe-disruptor-marketing

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/08/marketers-use-artificial-intelligence/

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/299611

https://luxurysociety.com/en/articles/2017/03/chatbots-5-luxury-brand-examples/