Surprisingly more challenging than I would have expected, it’s nice to have this working now so I can just use Facebook to broadcast what I’m doing.

Of course you don’t want to post your status manually to both Facebook and Twitter, and there are plenty of free services out there to help you do this automatically. I was using Ping.fm for a while but it was annoying to load its web page on my iPhone b/c I had to wait 10 seconds for the page to load.  I’d rather use a built in iPhone App for this.

Between Facebook and Twitter, you need to decide which one will be your main post site and which one will get the copy automatically. My preference is to use Facebook’s iPhone app because it is really easy to post my status and also very well integrated with Facebook’s other functionality.

So, here’s how to sync your Facebook status to your Twitter account:

1. get the RSS feed link for your Facebook Status.

This is super hard to find via Facebook.  Once logged into Facebook, use this link: http://www.new.facebook.com/minifeed.php?filter=11 and at the bottom right of the page you’ll see a link for “My Status”. Click on this link.

I ended up using Google Reader to help me get the actual RSS feed link.  For me, clicking the My Status link brought me to a page where I could add the RSS feed to my Google Reader.  (This is because I have a Google Account; not sure how you’d get the RSS feed link if you don’t have a Google Account but it’s probably something similar.)

I added it to Google Reader and then nabbed the RSS feed link from there. First click on the Facebook Subscription link on the left column (bottom) then copy the Feed URL (outlined in red):

OK, now you’ve got the link to your Facebook Status RSS feed.  You’ll need this in a minute. I realize this is totally a back-asswards way of doing it but it worked for me and was the only way I could actually get the RSS feed link.

2. sign up for a free service that will import your Facebook Status to your Twitter account.

I chose TwitterFeed.com just because it was the first one I found. You’ve got to use OpenID to setup your TwitterFeed account, which is a cool concept but pretty annoying to get going.  I was surprised at the number of steps you must go thru to setup your OpenID account.  But I guess a lot of sites are starting to use OpenID so it may be good to have down the road.

Once your OpenID account is setup, you should be able to login in TwitterFeed and add your Facebook RSS feed link.  Click the Create New Feed link and enter your Twitter account name and password (test it to make sure it’s good).  Then paste in the RSS feed link you got in step 1 and test to make sure it’s good. Here’s a screenshot of my other settings:

Do not check the “Include item link” checkbox or each post to Twitter will include a link to your Facebook status.  I think this is annoying to your Twitter followers.  Here’s my first test, sent via my iPhone using the Facebook App.  It showed up on Twitter in about 20 minutes.  The tinyURL link is there because I initially had the “Include item link” checked:

Bingo. U R Done.  I know, this was a pain and there are probably a lot of better ways to do it, but it’s working for me. Now when I update my Facebook Status, within 30 minutes, my Twitter account will also update.

Next up: finding a good way to manage the people I follow on Twitter and actually participate! =)