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Dallas, TX—In keeping with its mission to be considered “the ultimate driving machine,” luxury automaker BMW also tries to ensure that when it comes to social media, it also is the ultimate content provider. 

In a presentation at SocialMedia.org’s BlogWell conference reported by WordOfMouth.org, Kate Alini, BMW’s social media and emerging technologies manager, explained how the automaker engaged two of its super fans to become ambassadors for its new “4” series that is slated to be introduced in the United States shortly to replace its popular “3” series of cars.

“The content has to evoke emotion each and every time, regardless of channel and regardless of what that content might be,” she told the audience.

BMW enthusiasts are passionate about the 3-series coupe, and the carmaker is concerned they’re not going to take the change well.

Although a luxury automaker like BMW has much deeper marketing pockets than a typical independent jeweler, not everything the brand does is a slick, high-cost production. In fact, when it comes to social media, the carmaker is as willing to do a low- or no-cost program as it is to sink thousands of dollars into a promotion. BMW divides its social media efforts into three levels, said Alini. The first are what the carmaker internally calls “quick wins,” things that take little to no effort but can bring big rewards--the kind most jewelers are familiar with. At the other end, large-scale programs take a lot of planning and resources but hopefully result in huge rewards, while medium-scale programs naturally fall somewhere in between.

BMW’s #Un4gettable Weekend was one such large-scale event. The automaker started with two fans already passionate about the brand: one claimed to be able to identify each model of BMW by the smell of the leather interior; the other was essentially a walking billboard at motocross events, wearing head-to-toe BMW logo regalia.

To identify the right fans for the event, BMW pretended to be searching for subjects to appear in a documentary film on super BMW fans. After identifying the right candidates, both fans were treated to a BMW weekend, where they were given an opportunity to spend time in a 4-series car, both on the racetrack and on their own. Both fans tweeted and blogged throughout the event, and the carmaker had hours of real-time content to show—some of which even ended up in commercials later. The net result was 2.8 million impressions, 119,000 clicks, and 1,000 new fans in a weekend.

Another hugely successful engagement the carmaker did was low-level and purely reactionary, said Alini. A four-year-old boy named Eli, already a BMW fan even at his tender age, had a dream of designing his own car. BMW posted a description of his car—called the 4219Eli—asked fans to draw it, and did an official rendering itself, which was posted online. The result was 11 million impressions and Facebook stats “through the roof,” she said, and all of it organic.

Watch a video of her presentation here, or read a transcript here.