How do I sync Facebook, Twitter, & Foursquare?

Question

I have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, & FourSquare (to name a few.) I'm trying to work out the best way to sync all of these sites so that I can post once and update all.

Here's the problem:

1. Twitter is set to update Facebook. This is ideal because I mostly post to Twitter.
2. Foursquare is set to update Twitter & Facebook.

This leads me to having 2 updates on Facebook for each Foursquare check-in. If I set FourSquare to only update Twitter, it works but I don't get the nice embedded map that Foursquare does when it updates directly. If I have it only update Facebook, my tweets never show my Foursquare check-ins.

Any idea how I can solve this mess?

Answer 1

Having every single Foursquare checkin post to twitter has become quite a faux pas, at least among my followers. Some even consider a single tweet (i.e. took over as mayor) to be an automatic-unfollow catalyst. Depends on your audience though, I guess.

One option would be to use the Selective Twitter app for Facebook, which only uses tweets that include the "#fb" hashtag to update your facebook status. By using this, you could have Foursquare update both facebook and twitter without the tweet again updating facebook; and then for normal tweets that you want to push into facebook, include "#fb". It costs you a few characters, but it accomplishes your goal.

Answer 2

Another solution to this problem (still in beta, but they're allowing people to sign up without invite codes now) is a site called Ifttt. (If This, Then That). The site provides a way to access the API of many sites, Twitter/Foursquare/Facebook included. You can create a trigger on that site which will take any action when a new Foursquare check-in happens, such as posting to to Twitter, posting it to Facebook, adding it to your Google Calendar, etc.