Branding: Mark Cuban Shifting from Facebook to Smaller Sites

  • Goodbye Facebook, hello Twitter. Tech billionaire Mark Cuban says he’s moving his business away from the top social network to smaller sites because, “it now appears that to extend beyond minimal reach is going to cost brands more money,” Cuban told ReadWrite.
  • “That’s because in September Facebook changed the algorithm that controls which messages get through to which members,” the article explains. “The result is that some brands a sharp dropoff in the reach of their posts — as much as 50 percent in some cases.”
  • Facebook says the change was directed at reducing the spam in users’ newsfeeds — not getting more money from brands.
  • Cuban, however, is unconvinced. “I think this is a reflection of Facebook searching for more revenue since going public and the more it costs to reach followers on Facebook the lower the value to the brand of being on Facebook.”
  • Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks, and recently Facebook wanted to charge him $3,000 to promote a post to one million of the Mavericks Facebook fans.
  • “The big negative for Facebook is that we will no longer push for likes or subscribers because we can’t reach them all,” Cuban says. “Why would we invest in extending our Facebook audience size if we have to pay to reach them? That’s crazy.”
  • Cuban says he won’t be abandoning the social network altogether but wants to reach followers first on other platforms. “In addition to Myspace, Twitter and Tumblr are both ready, willing and able to support brand activation without holding followers hostage for additional revenue.”
  • “I get that they want to reduce the speed at which news scrolls off of people’s Facebook pages. The more stuff, the less you see; the less you see, the less you engage. All good points by Facebook,” Cuban admits. “But it’s a reflection of overall design and strategy weakness.”

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