There are several tools that allow you to cross-feed your posts between Twitter and Facebook. However, most marketers forget that these two applications have their own etiquette and that readers can tell when you’re cheating.

The most obvious giveaways that you are cross feeding your Twitter posts to Facebook are the ones that carry symbols specific to Twitter. These include @ and #. The @ symbol is the preamble to a Twitter user’s handle. For instance, mine is @JustTheFAQs. (I also tweet under @MaAnnaS for my book, The Sage Age.)

The # symbol is called a hashtag and places the words that follow it into categories that can be searched on HashTag.org http://hashtags.org/ Although that’s a great way to find folks tweeting on topics that interest you, they serve no purpose on Facebook.

Another sure sign that you are posting to Facebook from Twitter are the letters RT, which in Twitter shorthand stand for “re-tweet.” The RT letters are usually followed by the @ sign and the user’s handle. Altogether it signifies that you are relaying info originally posted by someone else.

While using these cross-feed applications may make your life easier, they may also make your Facebook friends feel like they are reading your Twitter leftovers. If you want to make a real impact on Facebook, follow the etiquette for that site. At the very least, consider stop cross-feeding posts that contain @, # and RT.

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