Facebook announced last week that they were going to allow users make their status updates public in a bid to compete with Twitter. (Which is especially interesting in light of the fact that they tried to buy Twitter earlier this year!) While there is a great article covering this in greater detail on TechCrunch, I want to look at this from another standpoint.
Instead of playing the game of which service will kill the other, let’s hedge our bets and use both! But wait, you say, I don’t have time to tweet on both Twitter AND Facebook. Never fear! There is a very simple way to sync it up so that everything you tweet on Twitter goes to Facebook and vice versa. This way you can still use the service of your choice and not miss out on followers on either platform.
This post is going to cover how to import your Twitter to Facebook. Would you rather import Facebook statuses to Twitter instead?
Now, to do this, you need a simple Facebook applications (free, in case you were worried) called, appropriately enough, Twitter which you can find here. “Install” this app (only installs it to your profile, doesn’t install it to your computer so the word is a little misused here). Once you have this installed, to to the app page (the link I just gave you will bring you back to it) and click the big gray oval that says “+Allow Twitter to Update Your Facebook Status.”
This takes you to a confirmation page where you confirm that you wish to allow this app to update your status whenever you post a new post to Twitter.
TIP: This app only checks your Twitter status every few minutes so if you tweet several tweets very close together, only the last one will show. This is a handy tip if you don’t want a tweet to show on Facebook but do want it to show on Twitter. Just be sure to tweet something else directly after that tweet and only the latest one will show on Facebook.
Now, let’s say you later change your mind about letting Twitter update your Facebook status. How to shut these updates off is not immediately clear. Yes, you could just uninstall the app but then you lose the ability to Tweet from Facebook which is handy to have. So instead, let’s just turn off that one feature and keep the app.
Log into your Facebook account and hover your mouse over Settings (next to Logout and the Search box in the top right hand corner of the site) and select “Application Settings” from the drop down menu. From the list of Applications, select “Edit Settings” next to Twitter. This opens up a pop-up with 4 tabs. Select the last tab, Additional Permissions, and deselect “Update my status without notifying me.” Click Okay and then Twitter will no longer update your Facebook status.
I’ve experienced problems with this software where it doesn’t always syncs your twitts especially the cellphone updates
That is the issue I mention above. I only pings about once a half hour. If you post several updates in a row, only the most recent one will end up posting.
Great article. I recommend using the selective tweet App in facebook. It lets you only post the tweets you want instead of all of them.
@clintstelfox
Thanks for this! I was wondering how everyone got the Twitter feed to Facbook!
Thanks for this! I was wondering how everyone got the Twitter feed to Facbook!