Just saw this on the X-factor Facebook page. If you want to get a sneak preview of the up-coming X-factor series (and let’s be honest here – I do!) then you have to “like” the X-factor facebook page first. Let’s be clear – you don’t get to watch it first and decide whether you like it or not, you have to blindly like it and then hope that it is any good.

On one level this is brilliant. There are enough people out there who are waiting eagerly for anything from Mr Cowell that they will happily click on “like” and broadcast their preference to all of their friends. It’s a way of guaranteeing that it will “go viral” pretty quickly. It also ensures that you have a great big audience

I do have a couple of issues with it though.

1) I believe that a lot of people are starting to become quite selective about what they do and don’t allow to be broadcast on their public feed. They know that when they click “like” then about 8% of their friends will see that they have done it. I also know of people who blacklist friends from their friends feed because they are constantly being spammed with messages about farmville and suchlike and don’t want to have to dredge through mountains of automated status updates just to get to the real stuff. Because of this, people may well be cautious about clicking “like” before they know if they really do think it is worth it. In this instance it might work because people are enthusiastic enough about X-factor generally that they don’t feel the need to vet this particular piece of content, but I don’t think that it is a model that would work for many brands.

2) The “exclusive” trailer is a bit rubbish. I’ve had to profess a love of X-factor in exchange for being told that X-factor will be just like last year. I hoped for more. Anyone know how to “unlike” something?

• marketing