News Source: http://briancartersocialmedia.blogspot.com
Published: Nov 06, 2008 - 07:26 am
Story Found By: martinbowling 1194 Days ago
Category: SEM
How?
Install the Twitter App for Facebook.
Everytime you tweet, it changes your Facebook status.
So what?
Whenever your Facebook friends log in, what they see at the top are: the people with the most recently updated statuses."
71 Comments
Comments
Am I the only one who finds this super annoying? I wouldn’t call it ’dominating facebook’No offence Brian
None taken. None of my 500 FB friends have said it’s annoying. They just asked about twitter.
@Viper Chill - you took the words right outta my mouth
@brian - the beauty of Facebook is that they don’t have to tell you it is annoying... they simply choose the option that appears next to your status in their feed to see "less about (insert user name)" which I choose when I see too many updates from someone
I’d say it depends on how much you tweet... I don’t usually tweeet any more often than I would update my FB status (assuming I had the time to do both.) Plus the content of my tweets is usually similar to what I’d post as a status update. <div></div><div>Also, unless I’m having a blonde moment, the Twitter app ignores posts that begin with @replies, so your more directed conversational tweets don’t end up cluttering FB. </div>
Natasha: Cool, vote with your feet... to each their own. But clearly, you don’t love me enough. ;-)
@brian "It’s not you, It’s me" - ;) LOL
weak
strong
You’re advocating spamming facebook? Are you kidding me? This is shady and desperate marketing - and I can’t believe people sphunn it like it was legit. Sometimes I worry about newbies who see things like this and think because they were Sphunn, they are good tactics. Shame on those who Sphunn it and shame on those who commented about what a bad idea this is but didn’t DE-SPHINN it.
This is a really weak article. I don’t visit Sphinn often, but I had to register just to say this.Yes there’s a Twitter plugin for Facebook. Heck, I *wrote* a Twitter/Facebook application. (no biggie)But all this talk about Power and Dominating facebook... using the Twitter App (haha) is pretty ridiculous.I think folk should worry a whole lot less about writing these kind of overblown advice articles in hopes of "getting sphunn" and focus more on quality content that’ll be useful to people over the longer term.A link to the Twitter app for Facebook should be 1 bullet point in a more thoughtful article about how to integrate various social media applications (Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Digg, LinkedIN, etc) to better manage your time and online presence.That so many people are digging... I mean sphinning... this article up just drives down the overall quality and utility of this site.I’d digg it down, but I just registered. ;-)
I was finally able to get an account that worked here. Huzzah.Not sure about the premise of this article, gents (Brian who wrote it, Martin who sphunn it). It sounds very much like spamination to me. Integration and information into walled gardens like Facebook is very helpful, in particular to those who are quite active in the social web. But to position a Twitter feed on Facebook as a way of gaming the Facebook system? I should think that many of the relationships on Facebook are predicated on a level of interest; personal, professional, social. There doesn’t seem to be the proflic amount of "friending" that goes on over at MySpace ("friend whoring?" HMM) so it doesn’t seem like folks are fighting for attention just yet. Suggesting that one should flood their Facebook updates with a Twitter app just for the sake of flooding definitely whiffs of micro-blog spam to me.Now, suggesting ways in which walled garden site users can integrate other channels...that’s a different and likely better take.
I suggest adding a link to your Twitter account info into your FB profile so that your friends can see it and choose to follow your updates on Twitter where they belong. Or, manually update your FB status once a week or so to encourage people to follow you on Twitter if they choose. Either of these options seem much less spammy and still observe the "opt in" sentiment that Twitter allows, rather than relying on people to "opt out" of your FB news feed updates.
Sounds like a good way to either get de-friended or at least have all your updates removed from everybody’s news pages: <font face="Arial" size="2">http://www.facebook.com/help/question.php?id=1867</font>
@ ViperChill - no you are not the only one who finds this annoying. I find Twitter updates annoying too - especially now from my "friends" who are updating their Facebook talking about how much they are in love with Obama or how "we" or "us" did it. I vote "less" on their updates and say screw them. This Facebook "dominance" is pretty annoying - and if any friends respond, one has to question - are they really working or do they even have jobs?I’m not a big Twitter user - sometimes when I have virtual tourette’s I’ll use it. But I don’t expect people to follow or to care - because I don’t really follow nor care what they are up to, friend, acquaintence or not.And the fact that Brian is defensive about this article shows me his idea isn’t much of a tactic. The "fact" that his 500 friends didn’t complain is not evidence of their agreement - only evidence of non-engagement. My "friends" on Facebook are mostly associations - and their frequent updates about stuff I don’t agree with or care only encourages me to vote "show less" from this user or that user.
Lighten up, guys. While the Title was somewhat sensationalistic, Brian wasn’t saying to spam facebook. He just said to hook up your tweets with your facebook statuses, which is indeed a good idea for most people.
Wow. Utterly shocked by all this.What I was talking about was the side-benefit of using the Twitter/FB app to update my status in FB more easily-- not a technique to spam Facebook, but the benefits of one 3.0 integration practice.No one is complaining about this practice except you industry folks. To my friends on FB, this has been a value add.What’s funny about you guys disagreeing with this is that many people I know on FB respond to my tweets on FB because of this, and know more about what’s going on with me because of this. I thought it would help other people too.Yes, I used "dominate" as a title copywriting rewrite to get it more attention. Yes, I’m trying to get more attention from my friends on FB with Twitter, because not all of them are on Twitter. No, I don’t want to spam FB. YES I’M STILL OPEN-MINDED ABOUT THIS EVEN THOUGH I’M YELLING AND USING CAPITAL LETTERS.No one here has given a cogent explanation about why this is spammy. I’m asking for one. Seriously. Spell it out. "Seems spammy" or "sounds like spam" doesn’t help me. Define Facebook spam. I talked to a friend who grew up with FB, has been on it since college- I went to college in the early 90’s, so maybe I see it differently. I think heavy, long time FB users have a different sense of how FB should be- I don’t understand that viewpoint, and haven’t seen it explained, so maybe I’m missing the aesthetic.This is one of the few times I’ve disagreed with a bunch of people in the industry about whether a practice is white or gray hat. So I’m semi-flabbergasted.I define myself as a white hat, non spammy person, so seriously, help me out on this one. If you’re right, I’ll take the article down.Thanks :-)Brian
THANKS JILL :-)lol
Aside from the article, I fail to see how this technique is considered spamming or even gaming Facebook actually. Especially, if majority of us use Ping.fm, Twitterfeed, Twitter Tools or FriendFeed to post your latest articles to your followers on Twitter.I have the same app and whatever I update on Twitter shows up as well as whatever I retweet. I use it to get the word out on things I’m interested in or that my friends may be interested in i.e. sports news, events, charaties, or just funny stuff period.Or am I missing the picture?
I Dont get the Idea of dominating facebook :|
>>>Yes, I used "dominate" as a title copywriting rewrite to get it more attention. Yes, I’m trying to get more attention from my friends on FB with Twitter, because not all of them are on Twitter. No, I don’t want to spam FB. YES I’M STILL OPEN-MINDED ABOUT THIS EVEN THOUGH I’M YELLING AND USING CAPITAL LETTERS.THEN HOW BOUT YOU TAKE THE ATTENTION YOU ASKED FOR instead of yelling about having to take responsibility for the use and implications of that word.By saying "use twitter to dominate facebook" you imply that people should tweet just to keep themselves at the top of their friends feeds. So yes, the thought of 100 people on my contact list importing their 45 twitters a day into my facebok feed, seems spammy. If I wanted to see 500 tweets a day, I’d check twitter. So to me, as a Facebook user, it’s annoying and people being allowed to do this type of stuff is exactly why I don’t go there anymore.If you scream fire in a crowded room when there really was no fire and you just wanted attention, you’re clueless if you don’t understand why you’re now all wet.
I actually use this app. Which means that I might know a thing or two about it. And heres the thing: its not spam at all. When i use it, it doesn’t post a new status on the feed, it just replaces the old one, which means that users don’t see spam they just see a new status update, like they see from any of their other friends.@sugarrae - if you run out of the room and call the fire department with out seeing the fire, then you are just as guilty.
I think this is great idea, as long as it isn’t being abused.
It’s not so much "spamming facebook" by you specifically as much as the idea that you’d somehow dominate facebook by using that app. It’s also not even that you wrote the article. I’m supportive of people writing all sorts of stuff. There are millions of blog posts. It’s that people here (30???) thought it was significant for an "Internet Marketing News & Discussion Forum" that I found hard to believe.It’s perfectly fine for individuals to use the app. If you tried to use it as part of some sort of "Internet Marketing" campaign -- that’s where people would start to perceive it as spammy. Facebook pages and groups (for organizations) do not use Status. They can however use facebook applications to pull in RSS feeds. It’s pretty straightforward to write an app to pull in your feed if you want to use that to market on facebook. If you *really* want to use Facebook as part of your marketing efforts, look into creating custom Facebook applications that people can opt into. I’ve done that and had good success with it.(BTW -- I went to Univ in the early 90s too... But I’ve been on Facebook longer than most students.)
>>>sugarrae - if you run out of the room and call the fire department with out seeing the fire, then you are just as guilty. Send comment HTML is disabled Joe, I know how the app works. You miss the POINT. I got an email from someone who saw this post on the homepage of Sphinn but is a novice to marketing their small business website. They asked me if they should update their Twitter status all day for no reason so they could stay at the top of the Facebook status updates their friends see. They got that idea from the title. They thought this must be a great tactic since it was on the homepage of Sphinn.So guess what Joe, there’s your fire.
Admins, what IS IT with Sphinn eating my comments lately?To REPOST: Send comment HTML is disabled Joe, I know how the app works. You miss the POINT. I got an email from someone who saw this post on the homepage of Sphinn but is a novice to marketing their small business website. They asked me if they should update their Twitter status all day for no reason so they could stay at the top of the Facebook status updates their friends see. They got that idea from the title. They thought this must be a great tactic since it was on the homepage of Sphinn.So guess what Joe, there’s your fire.
ARGGGGGGGAdmins, what IS IT with Sphinn eating my comments lately?To REPOST:Joe, I know how the app works. You miss the POINT. I got an email from someone who saw this post on the homepage of Sphinn but is a novice to marketing their small business website. They asked me if they should update their Twitter status all day for no reason so they could stay at the top of the Facebook status updates their friends see. They got that idea from the title. They thought this must be a great tactic since it was on the homepage of Sphinn.So guess what Joe, there’s your fire.
I’m not sure I agree with Rae on everything, but she’s absolutely right here.
@designmeme actually, I’d venture to say you disagree w me more than agree ;-)
I think the title is 99% of the issue here. I detected the faint whiff of spam when *I* first saw the headline, and because of that, didn’t bother to read the article. (Also because I don’t know very much about Facebook) 1st impressions and all that.
@Sugarrae I like to think that we agree in spirit, but we have different approaches in how we state our cases. ;-)I woudn’t bother following you on Twitter (since you don’t follow back) if I didn’t think you knew your stuff.
Ok I had a bit of a knee jerk reaction to this, same as Rae so I went and looked at FB to see the whole picture. I’m not the most regular FB user so that may have coloured my view.I can see your updates in my status queue Brian. If I didn’t know your Twitter account so well I would have assumed they were written in the FB panel. Now to be fair your tweets are not too frequent and you succeed at writing self-contained, entertaining messages. This looks like a method that needs to be handled deftly, with subtle social skills. A clumsy approach would abuse it completely. That’s probably Rae’s main concern with newbie’s seeing this and the the tone you introduced with your title. I’m imagining the kind of internet marketer who then thinks they need to update every few minutes or use Twitter as their personal chat room. I can imagine non-marketers being annoyed with "those SEOs" flooding the status queue. OK - well I do see one problem here. You’re republishing into FB without any real engagement. While users think you are engaging with them on the FB platform and replying to your updates -- you are in fact still on Twitter. I’m not sure if you can set up email alerts to let you know when this happens but if not, well that could be annnoying. No one likes having a one-sided conversation.Overall though I think this method itself isn’t wrong but you would have to be very careful how you employed it. It *does* have the capacity to be annoying or considered spam in the status update queue. Maybe part of "being careful" would not be introducing the method with the words "dominate Facebook" ;)@Joe I only have three status updates on the main page but that does seem to be a queue? When Brian makes a new Tweet, it is added onto the queue, it doesn’t replace his last one? Unless I’m missing something there?
Let’s say a company approaches you to do some online marketing. You tell them you’re an internet marketing genius and have lots of experience with Facebook. You get the job.How does this article help you do that job, and what specifically are you going to advise your client to do?
@designmemeIf we look at this solely at a medium to republish your message, how does this differ from Ping.fm? I think the point here is how you use the tool? I would say it’s fine as long as you engage and respond to people on FB who are interacting with your updates and you don’t spam. Understand that no one wants to see your messages taking up their entire status update page. Also worth noting that people can easily spam FB manually using the status update. This just makes it that much easier, so you must be very conscious of the number of updates you make.
@Nick when i tweet it DOES replace the last one. I am not sure if thats because I have my settings set that way, but thats how it works for me. Or atleast thats what I am seeing on my end.
@JoeI don’t know about the settings for this app but my FB is very vanilla - hardly use it :)When I login to FB - I have "Top Stories" which just shows the last three pieces of "Activity" on the system, including Status Updates. These change all the time but I only have three.If I click the tab "Status Updates" I get a full ’stream’ or queue. It contains several updates from Brian and I see quite a few of my other SEO/SEM friends are now employing this method. Looking a little like my Twitter stream republished.Live Feed also contains "Status Updates" as well as all other activities on the systemAh just had one through that is marked "twittered" - so it is optional to have this prefix to your updates yes?
@Nick, you are right, but when I say that the status is replaced, I am only talking about the ones from twitter. Not the others. BTW, DM me your FB info, i want to stalk you there to ;-)
@NickWilsdon It suggests a lack of understanding of what makes Facebook different from Twitter (MySpace, LinkedIN, etc). They’re not all the same thing by any means.I’d be a lot more impressed if the article had talked about actual businesses using Facebook as part of their marketing efforts.I’ve actually been doing that in a professional capacity for a few years now.http://www.educationinthenews.ca/2007/12/universities-sign-on-to-facebook.htmlSo I know that there are some excellent ways to use Facebook to market your business. The Facebook Twitter application... is not really one of them. :-/
Sugarrae wrote:They asked me if they should update their Twitter status all day for no reason so they could stay at the top of the Facebook status updates their friends see. They got that idea from the title. They thought this must be a great tactic since it was on the homepage of Sphinn.Maybe they should have read the whole article?
This is pretty hilarious ... lots of drama over the Facebook twitter app. I think the article was definitely misleading because the Twitter facebook app mentioned doesn’t give an advantage in Facebook. It updates your status which replaces the last status, which gets thrown in your feed on your profile page. The great thing about Facebook is that it manages your home feed for you. It knows that no one wants to see a bunch of status updates from people using Twitter, so it doesn’t show them. It only shows a select few status messages at the top, which it determines relevant to you by your behavior.I’ve found some people to be curious (in more of a negative way) as to how, or why, I feel the need to update Facebook so often, but I’ve also seen a lot of people much more engaged with my because my status messages are current. I get a lot of positive convos started because of a status messages, which I update via Twitter.So ... some people are wierded out by it and some will enjoy it, but it hardly "gives you a huge advantage on Facebook" or is percieved as SPAM (unless your tweets are SPAM of course).
@designmemeYes that did occur to me too. Is Facebook different from Twitter? On inspection their "Status Updates" queue doesn’t actually look that different. It’s a stream of comments, and although you can click through to "older" comments at the bottom, it doesn’t appear that they intend you to read *all* comments there? When Facebook incorporated the status updates, it looks very much like their intention was to have an "internal Twitter" app. If FB users do use the activity updates in that way (more similar to emails than a stream) then it would have some influence on this argument. It doesn’t look that way to me though?@JoeDM sent. The only interesting thing on there is the set of pictures from our "Doctors and Nurses" party last Christmas in Moscow. Feel free to browse though :)
Interesting- it seems like a lot of the controversy comes from the title I gave the post.Evidently I should have called it:"How Using a Twitter/Facebook App Can Make Your Status Updates Show At The Top of Your Friends’ Pages Which Might Provide a Minor Advantage To You But Could Be Considered Spammy Unless You’re A Very Interesting Tweeter Like Me"
@NickWilsdon Twitter launched in March 2006. Facebook launched in 2004 (with status updates). It’s far more likely that Twitter is based on the Facebook status than the other way around. ;)There’s a lot more to Facebook than just status as well. If people really want to learn how to use Facebook as part of their online marketing, I suggest these resources:http://developers.facebook.com/http://www.facebook.com/business/?pageshttp://www.facebook.com/advertising/http://blog.facebook.com/http://mashable.com/tag/facebook/http://delicious.com/popular/facebookhttp://digg.com/search?section=all&s=facebookAnd I once again encourage people to think about quality in their posts and resources over just getting the 20 or so diggs necessary to be on the front-page of this site.
@bbcarterI think simply changing Dominate to Update might have been a better plan.http://www.google.com/search?q=How+to+Update+Facebook+with+Twitter (hey, I didn’t know I’d be on that page. :D)There are other people here (eg. Rae) who are more clever than me at picking the right keyword combos, but I’d be surprised if many people are doing searches for "Dominate Facebook". Right?
LOL you’re thinking like an SEO, not a copywriter.
Even if I didn’t care about SEO, I’d still tell our writing staff to give it a more relevant title. It’s better for translation, accessibility, and journalists too. ;)Cutesy copy only really works in a print publication. Out of context on the web it doesn’t make much sense.Unless you were going for funny. I could see a funny article about *DOMINATING* facebook with your Twitter feed. LOL :D
In my opinion everyone here is missing the forest for the trees.Connecting your Twitter updates to your Facebook status does nothing but update your facebook status whenever you tweet. That’s it. It’s a tool. It’s not spammy in and of itself. It’s simply a way to integrate your social networks so that can create fluidity between your pressence across the web. In most instances this kind of integration is a benefit.If you have a handle on your social media strategy or your personal online identity you would be able to find a way to utilize this tool in an efficient, non spammy way. Simple as that. I use Twitter at work and I have it hooked into my Facebook. It does not matter in any way whether or not you choose to do this - what matters most is that your messages shouldn’t come off spammy in the first place. If you’re using Twitter as a way to generate conversation and sincerly share intersting content, it should be completely fine to start the same conversation and share the same content in a different place (Facebook.)And you alone are responsible for managing that. If 90% of your Twitter content is good to go for Facebook, hook up the app and then be aware if you Tweet something you don’t want as your status - simply go clear it out and delete it from your feed. If you only want 40% of your Twitter content on Facebook, vice versa. Twitter your heart out and when there’s something you’d like on Facebook - go put it up there. This article was a simple "ranking" discussion. I don’t know how many of you have background in SEO but if you’ve ever edited meta data or linked keywords in order to increase your rank in Google you shouldn’t be so quick to judge here. All he’s saying is that by utilizing this method you can get high rankings in Facebook. It’s up to you to have content that engages your audience and to check into Facebook on a regular basis to see if anyone is responding or trying to start a discussion with you.As far as clients go - you should be able to have a frank open conversation with them about Social Media. Explain that it’s not like advertising, explain that it’s about making connections and starting relationships. If they don’t get it the first time, explain it again. I recently wrote a blog post about how social media is like owning a puppy - it takes time and commitment to care for. Feel free to use that metaphor if you’d like :) The "Dominate Facebook" thing sounds like he was trying to grab attention and it clearly worked - so I’m not going to get caught up in nitpicking that to death. Basically I think this was a pretty standard article about the tools we have as social marketers so I’m a little shocked by the outraged reaction...?
@ktvan I completely agree with you. People on Sphinn like to blow things way out of proportion sometimes.
Here’s some comments from Justin, the guy who originally brought this to my attention. He’s on Facebook constantly and is NOT on Twitter.Justin: it’s smart that those things work together... i dont twitter, i have facebook and myspace already, theres not that "void of connectivity" in my digital life... none of my friends twitter outside of the office... and when we want to share something, we do it via myspace/facebook.... with the twitter app you have, and the way its so prominent and as often as you update it, keeping it at the top of my news feed, i’m likely always going to see your entry, and that makes a larger chance of me clicking thru to an article or post your referencing Brian: right, so is that spammy?Justin: no.... i have to power to ’show me less about brian’, or to even tone done the number of status updates i get in my news feed.... not to mention you only see this with people your friends with... like i dont think this comment is accurate at all - http://sphinn.com/story/83017#c57581Justin: i think its the other way around.... Twitter is like a business club with all you professionals gathered together to drive and share ideas and common thoughts (over-reaching?).... facebook is more a fun place... the more obvious you make a facebook app or anything to sell or directly drive business to, the more you alienate... the twitter app, and what i see of it, only hits me with one single line, i dont have to have the app installed, and you always include a link to click thru to... so i dont feel like im being spammed, and not being sold-to... Justin: i think people who over-think facebook totally dont get it- without those updates, i wouldnt read 99% of the articles you post because just an update of "brian carter twittered something" and having to go to your profile and then click a link there... is too much of an inconvienceJustin: i dont digg/sphinn/whatever-the-trend-is.... i dont go to any of those sites to get updates, read stories or anything without being pushed there... so i think over-optimizing for keywords on those niche sites within the "in" community doesnt reach causal people at all, and even techies like me never see it... its like everyone in those replies are all preaching to the choir and missing the point for fringe users
And Brian’s next post will be "How to dominate Sphinn comments via a controversial Headline"!This post is totally dominating the sphinn comments at the moment.
@Jill no kidding :D
What nonsense, silly title yes, but jesus, lighten up people.Ive used twitter in my FB status for like 6 months, some of my friends think it’s funny that I update my status so frequent;y, one or two have started using twitter as a result cos they realise what a great little tool it is. Not one of them has complained or un-friended or blocked me...go figure
I think this by and large depends on who your friends are on Facebook. There’s one person I know who adopts this method and I’ve specifically been told by quite a few of my other friends that if I start doing this too (they know I’m on Twitter as well) they’ll kick me off their Facebook. By owning the Facebook shelf I’m not allowing them to follow the "natural" flow of the rest of their friends. Or, as one of them puts it, "It makes stalking other people more difficult". ;)
@Jill No, from now on all my post titles will be boring and painfully exact in their meaning.NOT!;-)
I recently friended my daughter’s boyfriend and he commented to her, "Man, your mom update’s her FB status like every hour!" (Not sure if that makes me cool, a geek, or something else in his eyes though!)
Ya, not being a real FB geek, I had no idea once a day was the norm for status updates. I simply won’t remember to go into FB everyday and do that... and I’m thinking, if once a day really was a rule, FB would, or eventually will, throw out the Twitter tweet > FB status update app.
56 comments on this? seriously? Election must be over or something.
Sorry... someone else already has how to dominate sphinn -- hee hee... and that’s all I have to say... Oh and HI BRIAN... U having fun yet? Luv ya
Just realized what a huge contribution @sugarrae made today- some people think Sphinn and this community is too argumentative now, but one of Sphinn’s strengths is the room to argue and find better answers together. That’s one of the reasons I love working for Fuel. They encourage dissent... constructive dissent, lol.Though I don’t agree with her, the disagreement from Rae and @designmeme are what made this discussion happen. So, thanks! :-)David: YES!!! :-)
I have to agree with the above, despite some of the negativity in comments (slightly some from me as well), it’s great that many of the top industry experts can get together and discuss things like this.
I’d say it’s short termist - it takes one spout of abuse / overzealous use and you’re updates are hidden...Interesting that it triggered such a response though - definitely a good thing.Ben M
This is shady and desperate marketing - and I can’t believe people sphunn it like it was legit.
rae is absolutely right ~ i should have desphunn this shite last night when i saw it
No real quality here to the post, I wouldn’t even call it shady marketing, just shady in general.
It has a whiff of spam about it. Sorry, but an integration approach would have rung true with me.
This tactic goes too far, requiring people to "opt out" of your facebook status updates instead of "opting in" to your Twitter updates.
Sounds like a good way to have a lot less friends or at least none that read any of your updates.
really short and weak article. not much substance or explanation - more like a "hey look at me with my idea"
Sorry Brian, I don’t agree with this technique. Feels too much like in-your-face push marketing. FB friends didn’t opt-in for this.
The Facebook Twitter app hardly "takes advantage of Facebook."
no offense dude. The whole post could have just been "install the Twitter Facebook app"