Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 250 posts

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#181

Post by anm89 »

sfpoet wrote: post #93
anm89 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really necessary to announce that you've taken a specific position. Should we all layout all of our related positions on every post about a company? This doesn't belong here.

I'm putting my money where my mouth is. No, not necessary; contingent. No, we shouldn't all lay out positions. Given how much hacker news has been gamed lately, this does belong here.

So then say your short. Why do I need know at what strike price you bought at? This isn't wall street bets.

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#182

Post by CogentHedgehog »

lallysingh wrote: post #106
CogentHedgehog wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this claim a lot, but it forgets that Facebook has 1.7 BILLION daily active users and still growing. They won't miss a few users here and there: users are the product, not the customer. 100 million people could leave Facebook and it would only slightly reduce the amount of ad impressions they can sell. On the other hand if advertisers boycott Facebook that directly hurts their bottom line.

All true, but I'll point out that different users are worth different amounts. If the users with high disposable income leave, then the Audis and Pelotons leave the platform too.

An excellent point. Facebook's demographics now skew heavily towards Boomers who have lots of money to throw around. These boomers are never going to leave Facebook based on some "delete Facebook!!!" comment on Hacker News or Reddit.

Literally the only effective way to force Facebook to change their ways is regulatory action or advertiser boycotts.

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#183

Post by tick_tock_tick »

sfpoet wrote: post #47

All I can do is imagine Jesse Eisenberg saying this. There are other channels you can push your spend through with decent ROI. Nobody's platform be it a personal blog or small app is without analytics anymore. Shorting Facebook: FB 210p 7/10

Hope you sell those soon before you lose it all.

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#184

Post by asdff »

pikelet wrote: post #179
asdff wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example: Allbirds. $90 for a shoe with the build quality of something $25 from the Target store brand, but since it has hip, minimalist adverts on instagram it's seen as a great product and very popular.

I've never tried them, but isn't the selling point that they use natural materials rather than cheap synthetics like something for $25 from Target?

The main ad line seems to be how comfortable and the quality of the shoe, honestly the all natural point was news to me before you pointed it out to me, and I own the shoe. Two strikes for it though, given that they aren't the most comfortable shoe and as I mentioned above, the build quality was highly disappointing. I cannot stress enough how cheap this shoe appears in the flesh and on your foot, natural material or not.

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#185

Post by pwdisswordfish2 »

the_unknown wrote: post #32

And yes, he's absolutely correct. Some advertisers such as the big Canadian banks aren't even hiding it now switching from announcing a boycott to a limited-time withdrawal: "Participating brands will suspend all advertising on the platform for the month of July." https://globalnews.ca/news/7129688/facebook-boycott-canada-b...

A more interesting question is what if advertisers did not come back? Does Facebook have a "Plan B" for how they would sustain themselves?

What would happen if advertisers pulled out and Facebook fell on hard times? Would someone else acquire every detail of your life that you shared with Facebook? What happens if Facebook fails? Do they send your data back to you with a note saying "Thanks for the loan"?

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#186

Post by vin047 »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #152
vin047 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with you on the first part, but not sure on the second – if skilled employees leave (especially for other competing social media apps) Facebook will start to lag. Even with its core loyal employees Facebook can’t compete if they don’t retain skilled workers.

Facebook has enough momentum that not having the best and brightest probably wouldn't slow them down. And, let's face it, for what Facebook pays, there are still plenty of skilled people who don't favor one side or the other who would happily take their money.

Momentum would keep them going for a long time but they’d eventually stagnate if they lost the majority of their best workers – look at other once dominant tech companies who can longer get the best talent, even with their deep pockets. This doesn’t mean they’d collapse completely of course.

I realise this is just a hypothetical though – highly unlikely since it would require the top employees leaving en masse.

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#187

Post by legitster »

sfpoet wrote: post #99
legitster wrote: post #60

I work in marketing. Advertising markets are pretty damned efficient. If a bunch of advertisers pull out, rates come down, new advertisers come in. There may be some affect, especially if big companies were spending inefficiently to build "awareness". But at the end of the day, the market rate for a click is the market rate. Someone will pay for it.

If that were true, then why aren't frequencies capped for most campaigns run on-line?

I don't think I understand this question. Why doesn't Facebook limit the number of impressions? I assume the premise is that fewer ads will be worth more?

Again, the ad market is insanely efficient and competitive. Restricted supply doesn't correlate with increased prices. If 1000 impressions is worth $20 to me, and it costs $30 on Facebook, I can take my money elsewhere. I don't even need to push a button, I have software that could automatically change my budget minute to minute.

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#188

Post by product50 »

CogentHedgehog wrote: post #92
product50 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

400 advertisers, who are the largest brands, have already boycotted Facebook. And the stock is near all time high (it recovered the losses this week) and Zuckerberg is pretty much saying he won't change nothing. So there you have it. Very likely this will hurt advertisers more (since they now have lower ROI) vs. Facebook whose large base of performance driven and small advertisers (who don't have much brand to speak…

Most of Facebook's advertising by total volume comes from large numbers of small advertisers. That's why their stock is up -- people didn't realize how small the net impact of a few large brands is on their total revenues. Were you going to ignore my point about Facebook being about to lose 100 million daily active users without even feeling it?

You have no idea what you are saying. You need to go deep to have sane arguments.

If FB loses 100M users in US, they are actually going to lose their shit vs. them losing 100M users in APAC. Get real. The fact of the matter is no user in US (where almost all the uproar is) is leaving

ALso, most people knew about FB having majority of its spend from large advertisers. The stock fell because Wall St felt that the boycott will go deeper (or will impact usage numbers) but it just fizzled out with some big brands. And that doesn't matter. So it is back up again.

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#189

Post by product50 »

CogentHedgehog wrote: post #182
lallysingh wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true, but I'll point out that different users are worth different amounts. If the users with high disposable income leave, then the Audis and Pelotons leave the platform too.

An excellent point. Facebook's demographics now skew heavily towards Boomers who have lots of money to throw around. These boomers are never going to leave Facebook based on some "delete Facebook!!!" comment on Hacker News or Reddit. Literally the only effective way to force Facebook to change their ways is regulatory action or advertiser boycotts.

[flagged]

Re: Zuckerberg: advertisers will be back to Facebook 'soon enough'

#190

Post by luckylion »

jasonv wrote: post #178
luckylion wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually very well played. You know that companies want to hit pause because of lower sales and less consumer confidence, so you give them an easy out that will look like a moral stance, and you wisely limit the duration so that nobody feels too committed and can return to business as usual if Covid-19-related slow downs come to an end by the end of July.

Or, they could just stop the advertising because of budget issues. Supporting the boycott may be unpopular with some demographics. So maybe, just maybe, there's something to it.

> Or, they could just stop the advertising because of budget issues.

Oh, certainly. My point isn't that they're doing it because of principles. The companies do it because they want to save money. But offering them an out that allows them do press pause but not say "we have bad sales" and gets them lots of good will in important media circles, that's a good play imho.

Especially the very limited length looks like that to me. Had they said "to boycott Facebook ads", no large business in their right mind would've gone through with it. Even with "boycott FB for a year", I don't think so. But for a month, while business has slowed down significantly and you're happy to cut back in spending? That's an easy yes.

And for the organizers it's a win as well, as they can say that they got some large companies backing their cause. It's a smart play.

Post reply on HN