How to automatically post your Facebook status to Twitter

by Brad Grier on July 15, 2009

in Doing, Featured, How to, In the life, Lifestyle Technology, On the web, Social Media

Well it looks like Facebook and Twitter are now playing nice. If you're logged into Facebook, this page will walk you through the process of hooking things up so that your Facebook updates will go out to your Twitter feed. Select what you want, and protect the rest. I'm going to leave this post as it is, but the link above is really the one you should use to make this happen.

I'm in the midst of figuring out a better way to automatically build a list of 'tweets' and have them scheduled throughout the day. My current system is a bit broken.

A friend pinged me on Facebook saying that he was looking for something else, an app that would post your Facebook status to Twitter. I thought checking this out would be easy, but given the changes Facebook has been through over the last while the resulting solution is a mashup, not an app.

Yes, it's possible, not pretty, but possible. Here's how to do it. Some of this information was gleaned from TechLifeWeb and JeffSandquist.com (thanks!).

In FB, go to your Inbox > Notifications page
At the bottom of the right column, there’s the link for the Notifications feed… right click on it and copy the link (or hit properties and copy the URL that shows up in the new window)
To test that it works, paste that URL into your browser and hit enter. (You’ll see your notifications feed show up)
In that URL, change ONLY the portion that stays “notifications.php” to “status.php” and hit enter.
The resulting page 'should' be your Facebook Status RSS Feed. Here's mine for an example.
Copy your entire URL to a text document and save it. You'll need it later.
Get a Twitterfeed.com account. Twitterfeed lets you harvest your RSS feed at a set frequency and publish your feed to a Twitter account.
Create a new Twitterfeed using the long Facebook URL you saved earlier, set your publish frequency, and you're done.

Currently Twitterfeed is having some consistency issues -- some, but not all of my feeds are being published correctly. They are aware of the issues and are working to fix them.

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Tagged as: application, Facebook, Lifestyle Technology, Social Media, twitter

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Comment publier vos mises jours de statuts Facebook sur Twitter | Descary.com: August 21, 2009 at 3:12 pm

{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }

1 bgrier (Brad Grier) July 15, 2009 at 12:03 pm: Twitter Comment

Blog: Posting your Facebook status to Twitter: HowTo [link to post] http://post.ly/1J53

— Posted using Chat Catcher
2 Randy July 15, 2009 at 5:45 pm: .: Brad — wow! — well done. I’ll try this shortly (am home sick at the moment, not much energy). I would have NEVER come up with anything like this. Is it working? I realize that you are the man to follow, so I’ve added this blog to my Reader. Thanks for investigating this after my earlier question.
3 Brad Grier July 15, 2009 at 11:05 pm: Thanks Randy. The solution was on the other sites, just needed to be updated slightly..which I did. Standing on the shoulders of others..etc…

And thanks for the blog link! Do let me know setting it up goes, and your thoughts on the process, if you’re so inclined Twitterfeed is mostly working for me, but they are having a few issues..but are working on them.
4 Randy July 15, 2009 at 11:28 pm: Hi Brad. I set it up a couple hours ago, and just checked my Twitter feed. I had posted a FB status update a couple hours earlier, and that update has not appeared on my Twitter feed, despite having successfully followed your instructions. I set up an account with Twitterfeed.com, and pasted in the RSS feed for my status updates, and my notes as well. Nothing has appeared on my Twitter page.

Is it working for you?
5 Brad Grier July 16, 2009 at 10:00 am: Hi Randy, sometimes it takes a while for the Twitterfeed to ‘engage’. It looks like that has happened as your Twitter stream includes links from FB, with the source application listed as Twitterfeed. You should be good to go.
6 Brad Grier July 16, 2009 at 11:25 am: And, according to this ReadWriteWeb post, Facebook is in the midst of developing its own Twitter App…which would make these service-level-gymnastics redundant.
7 Randy July 16, 2009 at 12:23 pm: Thanks Brad. You’re right, what I didn’t realize was that Twitterfeed pulled my last four status updates, and added them in reverse chronological order. Duh.

Thanks again. Clearly I need to paying closer attention to your musings on Byte-Sized Technology In Easy-to-Understand Language!
8 Brad Grier July 16, 2009 at 2:02 pm: And hopefully we won’t have to rely on this workaround, if Facebook really is working on a Facebook to Twitter application…we’ll see
9 Nicole July 18, 2009 at 10:50 pm: I keep getting http 403 error The website declined to show this webpage
HTTP 403
Most likely causes:
•This website requires you to log in.
Am I doing something wrong???
10 Brad Grier July 19, 2009 at 8:47 am: Hi Nicole, I’m not sure why you’re getting that error…at what stage do you get it?

–Brad
11 Nicole July 19, 2009 at 2:36 pm: It’s when I change the notification.php to stauts.php It then goes to that error message.
12 Brad Grier July 20, 2009 at 11:48 am: Hi Nicole, what’s the full URL you use before you change notifications.php to status.php?
13 Nicole July 20, 2009 at 12:54 pm: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/notifications.php?id=1577791063&viewer=1577791063&key=ab1b64a69c&format=rss20
14 Brad Grier July 20, 2009 at 1:38 pm: Hmmm, nothing unusual there Nicole, perhaps you have to adjust the security or sharing settings on your facebook minifeed? I’m not sure what they ‘should’ be set to, but will look into it a bit more in the next day or so.
15 chris August 10, 2009 at 10:26 am: I’m trying to create a feed of my status, I have my ID & key information correct, and when I try to check my feed I get the dreaded “This feed URL is no longer valid. Visit this page to find the new URL, if you have access…” page.

Has anyone discovered the cause of/solution to this problem? Is there anything in the privacy settings that prevent the status from feeding?

I’ve gone into my Settings > Privacy > Profile settings and selected ‘Everyone’ for ‘Status and Links’. Under Privacy > News Feeds and Wall > Actions within Facebook, I have checked all of the boxes.
16 neevita August 13, 2009 at 2:51 pm: I am having the same issue as chris, and have taken the same privacy actions to no avail.
17 Brad Grier August 21, 2009 at 3:44 pm: Merci beaucoup!
18 Sean September 27, 2009 at 6:53 pm: Please help. This is driving me mad. I want to do the same thing — to get the RSS feed address of my Facebook status so I can put it in my aggregator or personal web site, but everybody keeps saying, “Go to the Inbox > Notifications tab.” There IS NO SUCH THING! I am not losing my mind. Why is this such a freaking hard thing to do? Is there a setting in my Facebook that is blocking my ability to see the Notifications tab? What’s the big security concern? If I want to allow my Status updates to be available as an RSS feed, that’s my prerogative, not Facebook’s.
19 Brad Grier September 28, 2009 at 9:37 am: Hi Sean,
No, you’re not crazy, that link is not there now. It seems that Facebook has updated the site’s navigation since this post was published, but not addressed RSS feeds. In fact, their own help on RSS Subscriptions is still out of date:

How do I subscribe to my Facebook Notifications?
If you would like to create an RSS Feed for your Facebook Notification…
If you would like to create an RSS Feed for your Facebook Notifications you can do so by going to your Inbox and selecting the Notifications tab. On the following page will be the option to “Subscribe to Notifications” on the right. After clicking “Your Notifications”, Facebook will generate an RSS Feed that you can save to your bookmarks folder and view in your browser. You will now have an auto-updating RSS Feed that alerts you of important things on Facebook involving your account (i.e. Wall posts, photo tags etc).

So I’d suggest pinging their support folk and ask for some clarification…

Good luck!

– Brad
20 Rex Strother October 12, 2009 at 3:47 pm: This is great and is working for me.

But question — is there a way to create a similar feed for photos that I post on FB. As I post photos to my wall or to an album, I’d love to ping that out as an RSS.

Is there some tweak to the URL that would grab those? I tried some obvious guesses, but they were no go.

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/photos or [album].php?id=507536722&viewer=507536722&key=bf2ab35700&format=rss20
21 Brad Grier October 13, 2009 at 10:27 am: Hi Rex, I did a very quick google and also looked around Facebook, but didn’t have any luck finding a solution. Which is too bad, because this just reinforces the ‘walled garden’ of Facebook.

As an alternate, you could get a free flickr account and have those images piped into Facebook by linking your flickr account to facebook. It’ll result in an entry like this one: http://www.facebook.com/brad.grier?v=feed&story_fbid=155695335737&ref=mf
22 Rex Strother October 13, 2009 at 10:38 am: Thanks Brad — I sent you a Friend Request on FB so I could see your example. Or could you post a link to a screen capture?
23 maheshone (Mahesh Mohan) October 31, 2009 at 4:30 am: Twitter Comment

@PatrickTiew Hey, try http://bit.ly/4cozmo, http://bit.ly/3LFuDB, [link to post] it should help you..

— Posted using Chat Catcher
24 thomas January 22, 2010 at 7:44 pm: I Did all right but im getting an error.…

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/notifications.php?id=647083440&viewer=647083440&key=976a399914&format=rss20

then change it to:
http://www.facebook.com/feeds/status.php?id=647083440&viewer=647083440&key=976a399914&format=rss20

and heres what happens:
This URL no longer exists. Click this link, if you have access, http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?status&id=647083440.
25 Brad Grier January 28, 2010 at 1:25 pm: Hmm, I just tried it using the first example you listed — with notifications.php instead of status.php — and got a valid RSS file in return — see this image: http://twitpic.com/1074ks

Not sure what error you’re getting?
26 Jaycatt January 31, 2010 at 12:48 am: I get the exact same error as thomas (#24). All the websites that tell you “Oh, just replace ‘notifications’ with ‘status’ and it works great” must not have tried it recently. Sure, it works with ‘notifications’ but you can’t get similar results with ‘status’. I’ve been struggling with it for over an hour, I think Facebook has just locked it out or something.
27 Robert February 8, 2010 at 12:32 pm: Yes Thomas knows he gets a valid RSS with the notification page. It is when he changes notification to status which is the wall, it errors.
28 Brad Grier February 8, 2010 at 3:54 pm: Hmm, I’m wondering if it’s an account-based setting. I just tried both my Status URL and Notifications URL and both return the RSS feeds as they should.

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/notifications.php?id=566085737&viewer=566085737&key=a6c39deda0&format=rss20

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/status.php?id=566085737&viewer=566085737&key=a6c39deda0&format=rss20
29 Tommy Christanto March 1, 2010 at 8:17 pm: Hi Brad,
I have try before
it was ok, but now it return me:

Tommy Christanto's Facebook Status Updates
http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?status&id=694224065
Tommy Christanto's Facebook Status Updates
en-us
StatusSyndicationFeed
Facebook Syndicationhttp://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification
webmaster@facebook.com

although i already set all on account > privacy setting to everyone
any idea?
30 Brad Grier March 11, 2010 at 11:55 am: Hi Tommy, check out this link — it seems to be the simplest way to hook Facebook into Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/twitter/
31 Laenne March 14, 2010 at 1:02 pm: Re: #30 — yes, but it only links *pages* you are an admin for, not your own profile status updates.

I, too, am getting the error message when I try to change “notifications” to “status.” How are your privacy settings set for your profile? Though, acc. to #29, setting privacy to “everyone” still isn’t working.

Kind of puzzling, this one. Thanks for everyone’s comments/suggestions/relaying trials & errors — and for confirming that a few of us are not alone in our frustration!
32 Rex Strother March 15, 2010 at 9:07 am: If it will help — even with the new FB upgrade, my FB status updates are still being transmitted correctly via Twitterfeed to Twitter (not that anyone is following them; but at least I don’t have to do anything to get them there).

The link I am using at twitterfeed is (perhaps this will help others to see a working one?):

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/status.php?id=507536722&viewer=507536722&key=bf2ab35700&format=rss20