In November of 2011, Chevy used Klout to promote the Chevrolet Sonic compact car in five different cities, loaning the car to 130 consumers with a Klout score of 45 or above.  The promotion target consumers influential in topics like music, technology, adventure and travel, and ran in Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta and Dallas.

The results?  16,000 positive consumer mentions on social media, three requests to take advantage of a special discount, and one confirmed purchase, according to MediaPost.

Chevy seems satisfied with the results of its Klout-based campaigns.   Last week, the brand launched its latest Klout campaign, offering influencers a three-day loan of the 2012 Chevrolet Volt, the auto-maker’s plug-in hybrid electric car.  The Volt campaign targets Klout influencers with a score of 50 or better in technology-, social media- and  environment-related topics who live within a 30-mile radius of Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.  The campaign will move to Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland from July through September.  Since the campaign was first reported in Venturebeat on April 9, however, the advertised eligibility requirements have changed to “Klout scores above 40,” not 50 as originally reported.

According to a Klout spokesperson quoted in the Venturebeat story, “[Car-related perks] are definitely among the most popular perks we’ve had with Klout, and previous Chevy Perks have done very well.”

What do you think?

With Klout Perks campaigns rumored to cost $25,000 and up, not including the cost of the samples or test drives, do you see an ROI in a return of 16,000 positive mentions and 1 confirmed purchase of a car listed at a starting price around $13,865?

==========

To learn more about influence measurement tools, check out The Realtime Report’s Guide to Influence Measurement Tools, our detailed analysis of personal and contextual influence measurement tools.