Hyves – The Dutch Social Network

The Hyves social network, one of the most popular websites and social networks in the Netherlands, is the most recent addition to the Ad Chap advertising network. With one of the highest penetration rates in the industry, Hyves represents a huge opportunity to application developers and advertisers alike; it’s estimated that over 1/3 of the entire population of the Netherlands is using Hyves, leading many high-profile Dutch celebrities to join the service (perhaps most notably Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende).

Currently Hyves boasts over nine million users, up two million users from July, 2008. Currently 95% of the traffic to the Hyves.nl domain comes from within the Netherlands. Hyves’ demographics are somewhat different than those of some other social networks, largely because of the predominantly Dutch population of the social network.

Hyves users fall predominantly within the 15 – 25 age bracket, with over 28% of their user base counted in this age bracket. Additionally, a significant 12% of Hyves user base is under the age of 15, a significant figure when compared to other social networks, particularly Twitter, which is notoriously devoid of the teenage demographic. Hyves’ youthful population is particularly attractive to celebrities, political figures and others interested in connecting with the youth of the Netherlands; younger generations can be difficult to connect with, and Hyves is one of the ways that important people in the Netherlands are bridging that age gap.

A significant 20% of Hyves users do not report their age; it’s probably safe to assume that these users are fairly evenly spread across the bell-curve distribution of age groups. Hyves shows strong popularity among users aged 25 – 45, and as those age groups (and the Hyves social network) age, the 45+ age demographic can be expected to fill out somewhat.

When it comes to gender distribution, Hyves is a very balanced social network; there is a slightly larger proportion of women to men on the social network, which mirrors the trend in social networking in general. Almost 10% of Hyves users don’t report their gender, so the true ratio of women to men on Hyves may be slightly more skewed than it appears. In terms of targeting, though, it’s safe to assume a nearly 50/50 balance of males to females on the Hyves network.

Looking at Hyves relationship demographics reveals some interesting trends, possibly related to cultural differences in the Netherlands; although only 20% of Hyves users don’t report age, and 9% don’t report gender, a massive 69% of Hyves users don’t report their relationship status. That’s significantly larger than on other social networks like Facebook or Myspace, where a lesser proportion of users hide their relationship status.

Of the Hyves users that do report their relationship status, there is a fairly balanced ratio of singles, people in relationships, and married users.

In terms of usage, Hyves’ analytics and statistics show a robust platform with a highly engaged base of users. The Hyves.nl domain receives over 70,000 unique visitors per day, and boasts approximately 380,000 daily visits. Hyves users spend a decent amount of time each day on the Hyves.nl domain; the average visit to Hyves.nl lasts about 22 minutes. The average user views 22 pages per day on Hyves; put together, these statistics show that the average time spent per page on Hyves is approximately one minute, meaning that advertisements have a chance to “sink in” and get a good amount of eyeballs.

Put together, the data indicates that Hyves is a powerful, fast-growing social network with a very specific, highly engaged audience that comes back to the website several times throughout the day and spends a significant amount of time there. As the Hyves social network continues to grow, it’s a good bet that the older age brackets will fill out, as parents, professionals, and other older users find more and more reasons to join the social network. What’s more, the incredible penetration rate among users from the Netherlands can be expected to cause a positive feedback loop, with more and more Dutch users joining the site because so many peers are already using it.

Since many residents of the Netherlands speak both English and Dutch as native languages, they represent a big opportunity for advertisers in both languages. In short, Hyves is a great place for advertisers and developers alike to reach out to the youth of the Netherlands, and, possibly, the rest of the world, as Hyves’ non-Dutch user base is also expected to grow rapidly in the coming years.