A couple of days ago, we posted a story briefly reviewing three upcoming vehicles that had beeen photographed during camouflaged testing. One of those cars was the BMW X1 – the smallest member of the BMW SUV line.
Yesterday, though, BMW released the first pictures of the undisguised vehicle. The pics don’t show very much – they’re the usual sort of automotive teaser shots that only show about a square foot of vehicle.
However, what is interesting is how the company released the pictures – on the official BMW X1 Facebook page. Of course, the images quickly began to float across the web , but the 970 (or so) Facebook fans of the car were the first to catch a glimpse of it.
This move, so far as we can tell, is the first time a car company premiered pics of their new model on Facebook, but I doubt it’ll be the last. Considering that Facebook offers free, targeted advertising for the automakers, we’ll probably see a lot more premiere images taking place within its time-wasting boundaries. (Hey, at least they didn’t do it on Twitter.)
Of course, for that to really work, car companies will have to find some way of making it obvious from the search results that their page is the official page. (For example, searching for BMW X1 brings up four separate groups dedicated to the car – only one of which is the official page.)
So head on over to Facebook and check it out – and while you’re there, be sure to become a fan of College Cars Online’s Facebook page!
