[HN Gopher] Unmasking Meta's Bad News Strategy
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Unmasking Meta's Bad News Strategy
Author : marban
Score : 65 points
Date : 2022-12-27 15:55 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (memo.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (memo.co)
| msla wrote:
| This is news about bad things, not low-quality news or a bad
| strategy regarding news.
| sydbarrett74 wrote:
| Zuck's prime strategy is to steal oxygen from everyone/thing
| else. He views the universe as a mirror to reflect his (in his
| mind) boundless awesomeness.
| loeg wrote:
| > * News that Sheryl Sandberg was stepping down was announced on
| June 1st, the same date of the much anticipated Johnny Depp vs
| Amber Heard trial verdict was scheduled.
|
| > * Zuckerberg told employees they'll be turning up the heat on
| performance reviews and slowing hiring on July 1st, right before
| the 4th of July holiday weekend.
|
| > * Meta announced plans to make staffing cuts on September 21st,
| just days after Queen Elizabeth's funeral service broadcast
| across the globe and the associated news cycle.
|
| This is numerology. Just dumb. Wow, announcements on the 1st of a
| month? Must be a master plan. Days after the queen's funeral (not
| even days after her death)? This is grasping at straws.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I don't think it's a coincidence that you're posting this on
| the 77th anniversary of the creation of the IMF.
|
| _What are you hiding?_
| [deleted]
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| There's always something in the news. No matter what day you
| pick you can always claim it was timed perfectly
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The examples given in this article are extremely weak, e.g.:
|
| * "Meta announced plans to make staffing cuts on September 21st,
| just days after Queen Elizabeth's funeral service broadcast
| across the globe and the associated news cycle."
|
| * "Meta then also announced layoffs on November 9th, in the
| middle of the U.S. midterm election cycle."
|
| Yeah, shit happens around the world, but saying Meta is somehow
| trying to hide bad news because they announced some layoffs "days
| after Queen Elizabeth's funeral service" is a pretty ridiculous
| stretch. It's like those jokes about adding up random numbers and
| then saying "ILLUMINATI" when you've become convinced of your own
| made up conspiracy theory.
| mach1ne wrote:
| I wouldn't call it ridiculous. It is a viable strategy.
| Difficult to say if we're seeing a coincidence or said
| strategy.
| charcircuit wrote:
| All but one of the stories referenced were from leaks. To figure
| out Meta's bad news strategy you should only look at stories
| where Meta picked the date on when to release the information.
| Closi wrote:
| This article seems to make the assumption that the dates for 'bad
| news' (e.g. layoffs) is set predominantly because of the best
| date from a PR perspective. This PR-centric view seems
| conveniently simple considering they appear to be a PR platform.
|
| Wouldn't an alternative explanation just be that 'bad things' are
| done on Thursdays, and news happens the same time the bad things
| happen?
|
| e.g. if I had to announce a layoff, I might pick a Thursday as it
| would allow me 3 days to ensure I could get all my team members
| in one place (e.g. you might want to do it in person if
| possible), and then I could potentially give affected employees
| the Friday off to adjust to the news. I would also still have HR
| in the day after it all happened to help manage any employee
| queries, and it probably disturbs as little of the week as
| possible (returning on Monday will feel 'different' but
| acceptance would kick in).
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| The top web search results for "best day for layoffs" say
| Tuesday, then Wednesday, Thursday.
|
| But 1 result from "Jobmonkey" says "Friday is the least
| conspicuous day to fire someone. It also allows the weekend for
| things to settle down and provides a few days so that everyone
| can gain some perspective. If you worry about an angry employee
| who might cause problems, this might be ideal."
| Supermancho wrote:
| > "best day for layoffs"
|
| Best day from the employer and employee perspectives are
| different.
| mustafabisic1 wrote:
| I love the process of thinking behind this article. Even though
| it didn't tell us much, it gives strong clues.
|
| It's how I'd like to analyze marketing data when a strict control
| vs live is not possible.
| indymike wrote:
| Former PR & Ad agency owner here. Better to release on Thursday
| if you care about external impact. Better to release on Friday if
| you are concerned with internal impact.
|
| Something many in business don't understand is Friday is the
| start of the weekend news cycle. If whatever bed news happens is
| released on Friday, and it is juicy, it will end up kicking
| around on weekend news shows, Sunday talk shows, Sunday print
| newspapers (which still matter in some large markets), and as a
| bonus, will cycle into the next week's news via follow ups. The
| reason to release on Friday is simple: you have the weekend to
| communicate with your key managers and do internal damage control
| (even if that is just keeping the team productive). For some
| CEOs, you turn off the phone, and go hit the Yacht for the
| weekend and hide. If you release bad news on Thursday, you'll
| potentially have less coverage, but have to be very adroit with
| your internal communication with employees. For CEOs that can't
| handle bad news, Thursday releases are really bad...
| condiment wrote:
| The article assumes that Meta's bad news strategy is intended to
| reduce readers of bad news. I'm not so sure about that. The
| strategy to release bad news on a Friday is intended to prevent
| that bad news from becoming the media narrative of the week.
| Likely that approach doesn't work for a company of Meta's size
| and importance.
|
| When they release their bad news in the midst of another strong
| prevailing narrative, all eyes are on the other story, not on
| meta. There's a fixed capacity for headline news, oped columns
| and blogs, and hot takes / outrage on social media. If all eyes
| are focused on FTX or the Queen or the US elections, they might
| notice Meta's news but they're not going to start the flywheel
| spinning on it. So even if the same-day readership for their bad
| news is high, memory of it is low because interest isn't
| sustained.
| not2b wrote:
| Agreed. The article is measuring the wrong thing: a company
| doesn't care about high readership of the initial bad news; it
| wants to get bad news out of the way as quickly as possible and
| have the conversation switch to something else. They are
| counting on short attention spans. That's why it's common to
| release bad news late on Friday or just before some event that
| the media will all be talking about. This article doesn't seem
| to get that and is measuring the wrong thing.
| _448 wrote:
| This reminds me of a dialogue in the movie "The Social Network"
| where Mark Zuckerberg decides to reduce Eduardo Saverin's
| Facebook equity from 30% to 0.3% using some loophole. Mark
| Zuckerberg tells the lawyer who is tasked with pulling this off
| "Make it less painful". If that actually happened, then this
| strategy of making bad news "less painful" could be a possibility
| too.
| sydbarrett74 wrote:
| 'Make it less painful [for me].'
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