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What's the upside and downside to these two options:
Am I missing a better option? I see a lot of overlap between these two options, and would rather not maintain both unless there is a compelling reason. |
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As far as I've found, Facebook and Twitter don't have very good cross-posting functionality between them. I would suggest using a third service such as Posterous for your posts. Posterous has an autopost ability that lets you automatically or selectively post to many different locations, Facebook and Twitter included. It also allows you to post more complex items such as photos and videos and will automatically convert those to links in Twitter and Link posts in Facebook. |
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Entering data into Facebook Wall having it post to Twitter. (Facebook app) Entering data into Twitter and having it post to Facebook. (RSS Feed) Use them separately if you are looking for high influence. You are not going to able to have the proper conversations if you don't use both. Most likely with Facebook you have people you actually know so I doubt they want you throwing links in their face every 5-10 minutes. If the point is to automate carry on with Facebook -> Twitter. Twitter -> Facebook is unreliable due to how Facebook controls 3rd parties. |
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If you are looking to simplify managing these two services, you should think about using a 3rd party program/service. Examples:
I've used TweetDeck and Seesmic before and was impressed by them. After playing around with HootSuite, it is looking very nice and it speaks on their behalf that many substantially large companies, including Facebook, use their Enterprise solution. |
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Evan, although it is very tempting to try to automate posting messages to every social app you want to use, please remember that they are all different and should be used accordingly. First of all, ask yourself what you are trying to attain by using each of them. Is it about posting links to your blog? Or is it more about active involvement with your friends or customers? If you want to use each platform to its full potential, you need to spend some time with every one of them individually. For example, while Twitter is great to automate posting of links to articles on a blog, posting short, original content and getting involved in conversations directly on Twitter is a must if you want to be regarded as someone worth attention. A Twitter account that is only used for broadcasting links is just this - a broadcast, one of many similar accounts with nothing original. In the meantime, you can have a really fascinating exchanges of 140-character long messages with people that are somewhat connected to you or the subject/product/service you post about or make a brand of yourself by posting brilliant, Twitter exclusive reviews that are not just shorter versions of what you have written elsewhere but are engaging of themselves. It is similar with Facebook. It gives you lots of tools and ways to connect with others but the character of the platform is different. It may be more private than Twitter but it allows you to be seen on many walls when somebody "likes" your page or befriends you. I know this is not a direct answer to your question but maybe there are deeper questions to be answered before you decide on the degree to which you want to automate things (and therefore make your content more generic and less aligned to each application)? Which platform serves your purpose best? What is the priority between them? How can you use each of them to their full potential? If you know answers to these questions, it will be easier to decide which app you will provide with the most of the original content and which one will only serve as a broadcasting machine. Keep in mind that it is not always best to post every update from one service to another. People may think that you try to engage them the easy way, without a real effort. This may not be true but perception is king. I hope it helps. |
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I like using Twitter as the main place I post updates, if the update isn't too personal for Twitter. I use Selective Tweets, which is a Facebook app that lets you post from Twitter by adding the hashtag #fb at the end of your tweet. The #fb is stripped off when your status appears in FB. I like keeping @replies or RTs off my FB wall. http://apps.facebook.com/selectivetwitter/?ref=ts I have a friend that only posts to FB from Twitter so she doesn't interact with friends' FB comments about her tweets. It feels impersonal, like a broadcast, rather than a conversation. I prefer to respond to FB friends' comments about my tweets on FB. FB lets you respond to comments via email, so between a Twitter client and and email client, it's pretty easy to do FB and Twitter together without having to go to FB. Posterous lets you automatically tweet and update FB blog entries with the "autopost" feature but I don't like that the links go back to my Posterous blog rather than the original link I am sharing. |
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