Nissan claims first car sold on social media in Europe

It started out as a hashtag challenge to car dealerships across Europe and ended in the first car purchase using Twitter.

by Helen Leggatt

When Spanish Twitter user Raul Escolano sent out the Tweet #compraruncocheportwitter ("buy a car on Twitter" in English) in March of this year, Nissan eventually took him up on the challenge.

In response to the Tweet, Nissan dealer Antamotor, based in Ferrol in the Corruna region of Spain, used Periscope to give Escolano a virtual tour of the Nissan X-Trail.

Escolano then took the social media experiment a step further and asked Twitter users to vote for which car model he should buy, using a Twitter poll. After more than 2.6 million impressions and a vote of 43% in favor of the X-Trail, Escolano purchased the vehicle.

The sale, which took two months, meant that Escolano did not have to even enter a dealership to complete his purchase. The keys were even couriered to him and he picked up the vehicle from Nissan's Spanish headquarters.

According to Nissan, this is the first car to be sold via social media in Europe.