Adding the Twitter Application to Facebook Profile

On the surface, Facebook, while ostensibly a member of the same social networking club as Twitter, is a social horse of a different color. You can post photos and videos that people can comment on; you can write on a friend’s wall; you can join groups; and you’re free to encrust your profile with as many applications as you feel like configuring. However, although many Facebook users take advantage of all these social knickknacks, the truth is that all most Facebookers do is update their status every now and then.

As a nod to this reality, Facebook recently redesigned the user home page to display a “News Feed” of posts from friends and, most tellingly, a “What’s on your mind?” text box at the top that you use to update your status, share information, or crack wise. Wait: a “What’s on your mind?” text box? Remind you of anything? Of course! It’s Twitter, Facebook-style.

This leads to a very obvious question: If you’re already using Twitter’s “What are you doing?” box to update your status, share information, or wisecrack, do you have to then repeat each tweet in Facebook’s “What’s on your mind?” box? You could, I suppose, post different updates in Facebook, but who has the time or energy to maintain two feeds? For that matter, who has the time or energy to post the same updates on two different sites.

Fortunately, you don’t have to. The kindly coders at Twitter have come up with a Twitter application that you can add to your Facebook profile. This application includes an option to update your Facebook status when you post to Twitter, thus killing two social network birds with a single tweet stone (or something).

You can add the Twitter application directly via your Facebook account (click Applications, click Find More, and then run an application search for Twitter), or indirectly via Twitter. Here are the steps for the indirect method.

1. Sign in to your Twitter account.

2. Direct your Web browser to http://twitter.com/badges. The Get a Widget for Your Site page appears.

3. Click the Facebook logo.

4. Click Continue. The Twitter for Facebook page appears, as shown in figure 7.5



5. Click Install Twitter in Facebook. If you’re not already logged in to your Facebook account, Facebook prompts you to log in (or sign up, if you don’t have an account). If you’re already logged in to Facebook, the
Allow Access page appears, so skip to step 7.

6. Type your Facebook account’s e-mail address and password, and then click Login. Facebook’s Allow Access page appears.

7. Click Allow. Facebook asks you to log in to your Twitter account.

8. Type your Twitter username and password, and then click Log in.





You end up at the Twitter on Facebook page, shown in figure 7.6. (To get to this page in the future, click Applications, click Edit, and then click Twitter.) The Twitter application shows your friend timeline, as well as a What are you doing? text box, which you can use to post tweets from within Facebook. When you want to return to your real Twitter life, click one of the following tabs: Twitter Home, Profile, or Settings.

If you want your tweets to also get posted as your Facebook status updates, click the Allow Twitter to Update Your Facebook Status. When the Twitter application asks you to confirm, click Allow Status Updates.

Posted in: Tips, Twitter