Mark Cuban Takes Mark Zuckerberg To Task

Mark Cuban is asking the $100 billion question, so I will too: Are brands making a mistake pinning so much of their digital marketing hopes on Facebook?

Cuban, in a lengthy post published in the wee hours of Monday morning, expands on comments that raised eyebrows a week ago when the Dallas Mavericks owner took to Twitter to complain about sponsored Facebook posts.

The problem? Not everything a company shares shows up in the newsfeed of its Facebook "Friends" and "Fans" — Facebook tries to bubble up the things it thinks (or you have told it) you'd prefer to see. The solution? Facebook allows brands — for a price — to override the company's newsfeed filtering algorithm (called Edgerank) and give updates (called "Edges") more prominence.

But the real problem, according to Cuban, is that Facebook is trying to be something it shouldn't be. And in the process, he says, Facebook is confounding communication between members (who pay nothing to be there) and marketers (who pay handsomely to reach them).

So what, according to Cuban, does Facebook want to be? Or, more important, what should it be?

For that, you need a longer Cuban post. Turns out last week's outburst wasn't just a tantrum by the billionaire investor somewhat famous for his tantrums. In his new post, titled "What I Really Think About Facebook", Cuban praises with faint damns one of Facebook's core objectives: to increase "engagement" among members.

"FB is what it is. It's a time waster," Cuban writes (all emphasis his). "That’s not to say we don’t engage, we do. We click, share and comment because it’s mindless and easy. But for some reason FB doesn’t seem to want to accept that it’s best purpose in life is as a huge time suck platform that we use to keep up with friends, interests and stuff. I think that they are over thinking what their network is all about."

Cuban began dialing back almost immediately when he Tweeted last week: "FB is blowing it? This is a first step.The Mavs are considering moving to Tumblr or to new Myspace as primary site." He then told Dan Lyons he was only "considering" a move. But he also upped the ante: Whatever was under consideration wouldn't necessarily only impact the Mavericks, he told Lyons, but all of the approximately six dozen companies in which he has a stake.

In his Monday post Cuban now says he isn't “recommending to any of my companies that we leave Facebook" — but ups the ante again:

"What could possibly be wrong with wanting to improve engagement? What could possibly be wrong with optimizing their news and information feeds? IMHO, everything," Cuban writes. "Defining engagement by clicks, likes, shares, unlikes and reporting works for Google’s search engine, I don’t believe it works for a social network." (emphasis added)

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been pessimistic about Facebook's business model for quite some time. I've criticized its approach to data mining for targeted ads, questioned its valuation, and, yeah, I'm the guy who suggested Mark Zuckerberg should perhaps step aside as CEO a few months after the IPO.

But Cuban is onto something – businesses need to be wary about the benefits and risks of Facebook. There's no such thing as one-stop-shop to digital marketing success. You can't have a Facebook strategy – any single strategy – and think your work is done. And if any one medium becomes too big for your own good, you have a whole new set of worries.

Is Facebook a blessing or a curse to your marketing strategy? Has Facebook created previously untapped opportunity, or is it a medium you grudgingly use because it's huge and can't be ignored? From an branding, advertising and marketing perspective would you want there to be a Facebook in a perfect world — or not?

(Photo By Keith Allison/Flickr)