UPDATE – A follow-up to this morning’s announcement about Twitter and the X Factor Simon Cowell, the show’s creator and one time social media sceptic, has come out and said in the New York Times that “The only powerful people now on TV are the people on Twitter and Facebook.”

Bold stuff indeed. The comment underscores how important TV is to Twitter and how it is working to expand its content team to work with media firms.

The work with media firms that has led to this X Factor deal with Fox came out of the product strategy started nearly three years ago with the hiring of Chloe Sladden. She joined from Current TV, which is best known for being headed once by Al Gore and running tweets live on screen back during the 2008 presidential election.

That process of developing media partnerships at Twitter continued last year when Twitter brought in another former Current TV exec, in the shape of online strategist Robin Sloan. He was  hired by Sloan, his former boss, as part of her team working on media partnerships.

“I was brought on board to be the bridge” between Twitter and TV, Ms. Sladden said in an interview this week. Now she oversees a team of seven in Twitter’s content and programming unit. Two started work this week, one to work with music labels and one to work with news organizations. She expects to hire four more in the next three months.

Evangelizing for the Web site, her unit proffers free advice and data to producers, politicians, celebrities, and other people who are effectively content creators for Twitter. “We work with them and think carefully about how to help them create the best possible content,” Ms. Sladden told the New York Times.

I wonder if Cowell had anything to do with Gary Barlow’s recent conversion toTwitter live on X Factor?

Barlow picked up 100,000 followers in less than 24-hours and had 300,000 after two days. He now has 561,305.

Twitter teams up with the X Factor to allow fans to tweet their votes

This could be huge and a great move for Twitter and TV alike. Twitter has teamed up with Fox and the X Factor USA and starting next week it will allow fans of the show to vote for their favourite acts via Twitter.

We’ve already read so much about how social media is saving TV, and how we increasing watch and tweet together, and this just takes that to the next level.

Admittedly this is in the US at the moment, but you have to guess that it will be hitting the UK next.

If you ever look at Twitter on a Saturday night, and we all do it, you can not escape X Factor tweets as the live shows go out and the public prepares to make their feelings known and vote now that voting process will be easier than and more interactive than ever (not to mention cheaper).

The move will also work as a marketing excercise in that it will massively help swell the follower numbers of the official Twitter accounts of the show.

To vote US viewers are being asked to follow @TheXFactorUSA and then submit their vote through a Direct Message. All votes are sent directly to The X Factor to be counted. Naturally tweets do not count as votes.

The easiest way to vote is by visiting twitter.thexfactorusa.com where Twitter is featuring Tweets from the judges, the host and the final contestants to get inside every angle of the action.

Twitter has also compiled a list of other ways viewers can get closer to their favourite TV shows and stars:

• TV stars live-tweet to give you a behind-the-scenes glimpse into what’s happening on your screen. From Kyra Sedgwick live-tweeting the summer’s finale of The Closer to Masi Oka bringing fans behind the scenes of Hawaii 5-0, stars use Twitter to talk to viewers and viewers are talking back.
• #Hashtags organize the conversation. You’ve probably spotted hashtags on your television screen this year. From #DWTS to #BigBangTheory to playful hastags like X Factor’s #BestMomentSoFar, these trends are the front door to the share conversation on Twitter. Search for them on Twitter and add them to your own Tweets to join in.
• Twitter lets everyone become a TV critic, 140-characters at a time. Show creators, actors, producers and executives search Twitter to gather feedback — and they’ve been known to revise a show’s storyline based on what fans are saying.

It has also collected best practices across the industry to help producers and TV executives keep innovating around Twitter and TV.