I spent some time this morning connecting my many Facebook Pages to Twitter.

You do so by visiting this page within Facebook.

Why?

If you’re publishing items on Facebook and want to be sure your Twitter followers can also view them, then connecting the two platforms is helpful.

I’ll bet you’ll find that you have people on Facebook who like your Page who don’t follow you on Twitter, and followers on Twitter who haven’t said they like your Facebook Page.

Connecting Facebook to Twitter versus Twitter to Facebook

Linking Facebook and Twitter this way, in my opinion, is more helpful than importing all your Twitter updates into your Facebook profile or Page status updates.

If you really want your Twitter posts to appear as part of your Facebook Page, I recommend utilizing the Involver application and adding a tab to your Page that displays Twitter posts.

You can access the Involver application suite, including the Twitter plugin for Facebook, here.

What’s your strategy for publishing on Facebook and Twitter?

I was both honored and happy to see a recent conversation on Twitter in which my name was mentioned with the likes of Seth Godin and Shel Holtz.

The question, asked by @TiffanyWI: “If you could see any SM presenter… Who would it be?”

One response, by @marthamuzychka: “@TiffanyWI Pete Codella @codella @ShelHoltz or Seth Godin.”

Of course I had to thank Martha for her kind words. And after I did, she responded with: “I have heard you speak 2X & both times I thought you were really clear about the practical approaches/results of SM.”

And in case you think I’m making it up, here are screen captures of the conversation:

It’s always nice to receive some positive feedback.

If you’d like to read more reactions from people who have attended my seminars, you can in the Presentations section of my blog.

The Importance of Listening

I’d just like to point out that if I wasn’t monitoring Twitter using services like Google Alerts, Tweet Beep and Social Oomph, this conversation could have gone completely undetected by me.

It underlies the importance — for individuals, organizations and brands — of using tools to monitor and listen to the social media space.

What’s the next Twitter?

The traditional media’s social media darling of 2009 has to be Twitter. Sure, Facebook has seen staggering growth in adoption this year, but so has Twitter.

And until this year, many people were still debating the usefulness of a publicly available and searchable type of global instant messaging conversation (that’s my definition of Twitter).

If you still don’t find value in Twitter, may I suggest you try searching on Twitter for mentions of your people, products, brands and/or services? I’ll wager you’d be surprised to find that people are using Twitter to talk about you.

In my opinion, that’s the essence of social media:

Find out what others are saying, then join the conversation and participate.

Don’t just lurk in the shadows. And don’t wait until a crisis to begin using social media to tell your side of the story. If you do, you’ll be seen as a day late and a dollar short. Just ask Domino’s Pizza about their YouTube experience this year.

I’ll go on record with three predictions for 2010, for what will replace the rampant Twitter discussion and what will underscore the social-media-at-large discussion.

One : Convergence

This is more of a trend than a tool. I think we’re all pretty overwhelmed with the number of usernames and passwords we’re required to keep track of.

I’ll look forward to the technology that allows for one verifiable online identity that I can take with me from platform to platform — online banking, purchasing products, social networking, searching, publishing, commenting, etc.

I believe we’ll see more moves towards convergence and sharing of information between different online platforms in 2010.

Two : Video

I’m from the MTV generation. In 2010 Generation Y will outnumber Baby Boomers (at least according to the statistics offered by Socialnomics on YouTube).

Digital natives (those born after the appearance of broadband Internet) expect video content.

People searching online are more apt to view search results with images or video associated with their query than those results with just plain text.

And people are more likely to stick around and interact with you online when your site presents more of a multimedia offering than not.

I believe we’ll see more easily accessible video publishing and sharing tools and technologies in 2010.

I like what Real Player [real.com] is doing with taking online video and making it portable for the user.

Three : Location-Based Connection Tools

Remember the dot-com rush? People thought if you secured a dot-com and launched a business, you’d be rich.

What happened was that the Internet and dot-com sites were successful, usually, when they supported a bricks-and-mortar business. The Internet became a non-geographic extension of a physical business.

With social media, the trend I see is using technology to connect us physically, which requires proximity.

In 2010 I think we’ll see more use of social media tools that bring people together in geographic regions, whether at home, at conferences or out shopping. FourSquare is an interesting application along these lines.

Your Thoughts?

What do you see on the social media horizon for 2010?

Perhaps you’re popular enough that people want to be you.

On Twitter, there’s only one level of security. Everyone knows your username because it’s in your URL. All they have to do is guess your account password and they can suddenly begin tweeting as if they are you.

This happened to the LDS Church News last week. Someone figured out their password and then changed it so the Church News could no longer access the account. They then proceeded to publish anti-Mormon tweets.

It took Twitter three days to shut down the account.

Imagine what would happen to your company or brand if this happened to you.

A word to the wise: be sure to create a good Twitter password, then protect it.

I’m included below in a KSL Channel 5 news broadcast about the incident.

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

Thanks to the folks at the Twitter Power System Blog, I found some cool new ways to search for Twitter users using my favorite search engine, Google.

Check out their guide here.

As my Facebook friends know, much to their chagrin, I’m fond of using Twitter to take notes during online webinars.

While it may broadcast my quick note taking thoughts to all my networks through my FriendFeed, it also nicely takes care of a few other things.

Here are some advantages I see to using Twitter for the purpose of taking notes:

• It archives my thoughts for future reference.
• It contributes to a worldwide dialogue which can be accessed online by anyone doing a Twitter search for the hashtag topic.
• It creates engagement with other seminar attendees.
• It introduces new thoughts, ideas and products into the mix.

Seems to me that Twitter is a great tool for a type of crowdsourcing — gathering conversation — focused on a specific event or topic.

Do any of you have favorite uses for Twitter?

Perhaps you’ve heard about the Battle of the Tweeters that’s been heating up this week and finally came to a head today?

History was made today!

The first Twitter user to exceed one million followers is actor Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk). He was in a tight race with CNN (@cnnbrk) and ultimately, the celebrity pulled it off.

You’ve heard about the first man on the moon. And perhaps you’ve heard the audio tape or watched the video of that historical moment.

If you’re able to watch Oprah (@Oprah) today, you’ll see the world’s first tweeter with one million followers.

Check out what’s being said on Twitter Search about Ashton and his competition with CNN.

Who cares?

Part of me likes the fact that Twitter really seems to be taking over mainstream media. There aren’t many who haven’t talked about it, reported on it or used it.

Here’s what some of my Twitter colleagues had to say:

In our Social Media Club of Salt Lake City luncheon seminar yesterday the presenter, Jay Shaffer of Infopia, commented that in a recent conference with Guy Kawasaki all everyone wanted to talk about was Twitter. It’s certainly all the rage.

But do non-media, non-content-producers really care about Twitter?

If they don’t, they should.

The Case for Twitter

The future of communication is mobile. The mobile phone will be an individual’s hub for all their information — their calendar, their contacts, their entertainment.

Twitter’s SMS (text message) platform makes it perfect for the mobile phone format.

Twitter’s ability to collectively report on crisis situations and to catalog large conversations from across the globe make it a powerhouse to be reckoned with.

Companies, organizations and individuals that want to participate in modern communication will be forced to use Twitter.

To remain absent in the conversation would be foolish.

Traditional, older methods of communication will not be replaced by Twitter any more than radio was replaced by television.

But like it or not, in 140 characters or less, Twitter has forever changed the way in which we communicate.