Twitter + Facebook = Tweetdeck!

Twitter is one of the hottest blog topics these days.  Tons of people have signed up and are putting themselves out there through 140 character "tweets".  As has been discussed, and anyone who has spent a significant amount of time on Twitter can attest, after a while you need to start filtering out the noise that comes from hundreds to potentially thousands of people who you might choose to follow and everything that they are putting into their tweet stream.

The most popular solution to this problem has become Tweetdeck.  Tweetdeck allows you to group those that you follow into categories as well as filter the messages that you receive down to those that contain information that you are interested in, or information that is relevant to your business.

Recently Facebook made some changes to the profile homepage that seem to mimic Twitter's tweet stream.  This exciting new change has allowed Tweetdeck to release a new Beta version (v0.24.2b) that interacts with both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously!  That's right, you can now use Tweetdeck to update your Twitter and Facebook status by typing a single message!

As I mentioned, this version is still in beta testing and is not being promoted to the public yet, but if you want to be one of the first to get your hands on it, you can download it now from the Tweetdeck Website.

Once you have the program installed on your computer, you log on as you would normally, supplying your Twitter ID and password.  To access the Facebook functionality, you click on the Facebook icon at the top of the page and provide your Facebook logon information.  Tweetdeck will now create a new column called "Facebook: Friend Status".  This column will contain all of your Facebook friend's most recent status updates.  Using Tweetdeck you can then respond to them through Facebook, email their update anywhere you want, or even Tweet it out to your Twitter stream.  There's a new green status light under the updates in your Facebook column, these green lights represent friends who are "online" on Facebook.  By clicking the green light or their name you can actually open Facebook chat within Tweetdeck! 

You have the option of toggling on or off both Twitter and Facebook to use Tweetdeck on one platform instead of the other.  If you select to distribute your updates to both Twitter and Facebook, Facebook will not receive any Tweets that are replies to others in your Twitter stream, in other words, if your message begins with @anything, that message will be blocked and not go to Facebook.

This awesome new technology brings along with it a possibility that will no doubt spark a lot of debate.  Many people, myself included have used Facebook as sort of a Social Networking Insulator.  Up to this point, I've been selective about who I network with on Facebook.  I've been diligent in filling out my privacy settings.  I feel comfortable on Facebook.  I can get away with an occasional off colored remark, because it's all my friends there!  No Worries!  Right?  Not anymore.  Now, any one of my friends who uses Tweetdeck along with Facebook could easily RT (ReTweet or forward) any update that I post on my Facebook profile to their Twitter stream of potentially hundreds if not thousands of readers.  Goodbye privacy!  Hello convenience. 

Despite the privacy issue, I'm looking forward to using this as a great time saver.  Sometimes there's just not enough time to manage these different forums.  Lately I haven't been on Facebook as much because I've been busy blogging and busy on Twitter.  This will allow me to be active on Facebook as well with no additional effort.  I hope this might help you market your business as well!

Jason Sanders

Business Networking Specialist