Facebook will soon let you update Twitter

Update: Facebook now lets you update Twitter.

As part of the launch of its Subscriptions feature, Facebook is also rolling out the ability to send your status updates to Twitter. Not only is the social networking giant letting you subscribe to Facebook users who you aren't friends with, and not only is it letting you offer your own public updates to Facebook users who aren't your friends, but it is also letting you send your public Facebook status updates to a linked Twitter account.

The new addition is mentioned in Facebook's September 2011 update of its Subscribe for Public Figures (PDF) five-page document. It's buried on the last page, under the last FAQ (emphasis mine):

14. Can I update my Twitter followers from Facebook? Yes, soon you'll be able to update your Twitter account directly from Facebook. To get started: 1) Go to facebook.com/twitter 2) Link your profile or Page to your Twitter account Once you link your accounts, your Twitter account will be updated every time you post a public update to Facebook. Note: Only posts whose privacy you set to Public using your inline controls are eligible for this

As you can see in the screenshot above, the company has offered this feature for Facebook Pages for quite some time now. It's great for businesses, bands, public figures, and whoever else manages a Facebook Page and an accompanying Twitter account. It cuts down their workload significantly since they only have to publish updates on their Facebook Page, and the Twitter account automatically sends out the same messages.

Now, Facebook is apparently going to do the same thing for individual profiles. That means if you have a Twitter account, updating your Facebook status publicly will send out a tweet as well.

A few third-party apps have done this in the past, but Facebook has been meticulous at blocking them. The company has always wanted to keep content shared on Facebook strictly on the social network. Apparently, it is slowly changing its stance.

I've wanted to do this for a long time, although I was recently told that it's frowned upon to issue the same updates on multiple social networks. Thankfully, my Facebook friends and Twitter followers are mutually exclusive. I'll be looking out for when this rolls out (a Facebook spokesperson simply said "soon" but maybe it will be at f8 next week).

See also:

• Facebook launches Subscriptions, similar to Twitter following
• Pink claims her Facebook account was hacked, on Twitter
• The rich flock to Facebook, don't bother with Twitter
• Chrome extension adds your Facebook, Twitter streams into Google+
• Facebook plugins most used, Google +1 button passes Twitter buttons