Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban in a special to the HUFFINGTON POST wrote under the header, "What I Really Think About Facebook." Cuban: "First, I'm not recommending to any of my companies that we leave Facebook. I am recommending that we de-emphasize pushing consumers or partners to Like us on Facebook and focus on building up our followings across all existing social media platforms and to evaluate those that we feel can grow a material following." In the past "we put Facebook first -- Twitter second." Facebook has been "moved to the bottom of a longer list." Facebook execs believe that their news feed "is an engaging information source," and they seem to "really, really want to make sure that you get the information that is most engaging to you." Cuban: "I honestly didn't know this." People go to Facebook "with the expectation that it is very likely they will stay on Facebook for an extended period of time." But, for some reason, Facebook "doesn't seem to want to accept that its best purpose in life is as a huge time-suck platform that we use to keep up with friends, interests and stuff." Cuban: "I think that they are overthinking what their network is all about." From a brand's perspective, "not having to try to fall within the parameters of the algorithm (Edgerank) allows us to post fun things, tidbits, information, anything knowing that there is at least a chance those who have a connection with us can see it and knowing that we won't reduce our chances of the algorithm showing our post." We should "know better than an algorithm what those who like us actually like." It may well be "that it's a passive relationship." Maybe they "just want to see the scores at the end of every quarter in a Mavs game?" Maybe they "want to know what show is playing right now on AXS TV?" No one expects them to "Like, comment or share any of this." It is "just an information source." And it is "really weird when Mavs end-of-quarter scores show up out of order." That is how "smart the algorithm is." Facebook is "overcomplicating a simple issue" (HUFFINGTONPOST.com, 11/19).
REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE: ALLFACEBOOK.com's David Cohen noted Cuban earlier this month "used the example of a Facebook post promoting" an upcoming Mavericks game, pointing out that the post "reached only about 27,000 of the nearly 2.36 million Facebook users who liked the team’s page." In an e-mail to ReadWrite, Cuban wrote, "We are moving far more aggressively into Twitter and reducing any and all emphasis on Facebook. We won't abandon Facebook, we will still use it, but our priority is to add followers that our brands can reach on non-Facebook platforms first" (ALLFACEBOOK.com, 11/19).
