Get a first look at “The X Factor Auditions” on Twitter
Monday, 14 April 2014
When you’re producing a show as highly-anticipated as @thexfactor_au, one of the biggest challenges is how to tease the upcoming series without spoiling your stories — especially when you’re filming that show in an arena filled with fans all equipped with smartphones.
The #XFactorAU Auditions for this year’s upcoming series have just wrapped filming. If you’ve been following @thexfactor_au, you have had an exciting preview of what’s to come. Realising the excitement that surrounds each year’s auditions, the producers of the show cleverly adopted a “tease, not spoil, strategy” by tweeting content that gives fans who couldn’t attend a sense of the event while not spoiling the upcoming show. They did this through cryptic overheads, teasing photos from the official account and the show’s talent, and a Twitter Q&A with the host Luke Jacobz.
While the producers didn’t want to reveal the details of each contestant, they did want to give the audience a sample of the variety of talent that was lining up to impress this year’s returning panel. They tweeted out #Overheard comments from the judges’ desk covering everything from the truly stunning to the stunningly bizarre. To be a fly on the wall at this year’s auditions, all you had to do was search for the #Overheard hashtag. Here’s a custom timeline of some of the highlights:
Tweeting photos is a great way to give fans a behind-the-scenes look at your show as it’s being shot. With the latest features in the Twitter app, you can use in-app filters to make your photos look even more stunning, and the in-app cropping tool to remove any spoilers.
Photos are now even more social with the recent addition of photo-tagging, so you can tag friends and followers in photos. This proved especially useful during the auditions when familiar faces from previous series joined the crowd.
Sometimes there’s a moment you want to share that’s so awesome you need more than one photo to express it. Luckily you can now upload up to four photos into a single Tweet in the Twitter app. When you have four superstar judges walking the red carpet, this can prove useful!
In an Australian first, @thexfactor_au partnered with @bumebox to run a Twitter Q&A with the host @LukeJacobz. Fans could chat directly with Luke on Twitter and ask questions about how the Auditions had gone. This real-time public conversation was a perfect opportunity to engage with fans who couldn’t be there in-person.
Credit: The X Factor Q&A powered by Bumebox
Accompanying the official account, there was also a lot of great content being shared by Luke and the four judges on the panel — @RonanOfficial, @NatalieBassing, @DanniiMinogue and @Redfoo — highlighting the fun going on backstage and in the auditions arena.
By successfully adopting a “tease, don’t spoil” strategy, #XFactorAU fans in the audience quickly learned how to tweet-along to the Auditions without spoiling future episodes for fans.
Like any fan of The X Factor Australia, it’s hard to believe the show is still months away, but one thing that’s certain is that these updates have made the wait a little easier. If you want to continue to follow The X Factor journey be sure to follow all the official handles:
Did someone say … cookies?
X and its partners use cookies to provide you with a better, safer and
faster service and to support our business. Some cookies are necessary to use
our services, improve our services, and make sure they work properly.
Show more about your choices.