In a roundabout way, Twitter can be a good place to sell a car.

During a luncheon keynote at DMA09 in San Diego, Scott Monty, global digital and communications manager, Ford Motor Co. talked about how his company is using social media to get consumers tweeting about—and driving—American cars.

Ford has spent the last 10 months distancing the brand from its U.S. competitors. (Monty proudly noted that unlike many of them, Ford did not take government bailout money—a comment that drew applause from the crowd.)

The challenge, he said, was that the company had world-class products but people didn’t necessarily recognize it. “If you don’t have good products to back up your marketing, it’s meaningless.”

The strategy was to humanize the company and connect Ford with the consumer. Social media was a natural for this. Monty looks at blogs and discussion forums every day. “Social media is all about being present,” he observes.

Ford maintains 10 Twitter accounts domestically for various brands and niches, like green marketing or racing. In April, Monty got Ford CEO Alan Mulally to answer question on Twitter for an hour and videotaped the session, to showcase Mulally’s personality for consumers. Mulally jumped into the fray again, when a consumer tweeted to Monty that he had gone on a second test drive of a Ford vehicle and was undecided. The consumer asked Monty to get Mullally to call him to help him decide. To the consumer’s shock, Mullally called. The consumer went on to buy a Ford, and then detailed his experience in a blog post, which was picked up in other media.

“You can’t have every customer interact with the CEO, but you can do it when it makes a difference,” said Monty.

Other social media campaigns include a 10-city tour to connect with Twitter users to promote the redesigned Taurus, and a contest where young filmmakers were invited to create short films about the Mustang. Out of 400 entries, 20 finalists were chosen and flown to the LA Auto Show where the winner was announced.

A current campaign is the Fiesta Movement, to promote the new Fiesta, already available in Europe but not yet for sale in the United States. Ford brought 100 of the cars into the country and gave them to bloggers. So far, there have been 4.3 million views of the bloggers’ Fiesta-related videos on YouTube, and 540,000 views of their Flickr photos, as well as three million tweets.

So far, 50,000 people have asked dealers for information on the car, which isn’t even for sale here yet. And, 97% of those folks aren’t current Ford owners.

All of Ford’s social media content—both internally created and from outside bloggers and media—is aggregated on TheFordStory.com. The company also hosts an online newsroom specifically to provide Web ready images and press releases to bloggers and other social media users, at ford.digitalsnippets.com.

Prior to joining Ford about a year ago, Monty was admittedly not a car guy. But should anyone question his commitment as a driver now, it should be noted that the day before his keynote he was stranded in Las Vegas when his flight got cancelled. He of course, quickly rented a car and drove the 4 ½ hours to San Diego.

The type of car he rented? A Volvo. “They’re still a part of the Ford family for a little while longer,” he said with a smile.

In a roundabout way, Twitter can be a good place to sell a car.

During a luncheon keynote at DMA09 in San Diego, Scott Monty, global digital and communications manager, Ford Motor Co. talked about how his company is using social media to get consumers tweeting about—and driving—American cars.

Ford has spent the last 10 months distancing the brand from its U.S. competitors. (Monty proudly noted that unlike many of them, Ford did not take government bailout money—a comment that drew applause from the crowd.)

The challenge, he said, was that the company had world-class products but people didn’t necessarily recognize it. “If you don’t have good products to back up your marketing, it’s meaningless.”

The strategy was to humanize the company and connect Ford with the consumer. Social media was a natural for this. Monty looks at blogs and discussion forums every day. “Social media is all about being present,” he observes.

Ford maintains 10 Twitter accounts domestically for various brands and niches, like green marketing or racing. In April, Monty got Ford CEO Alan Mulally to answer question on Twitter for an hour and videotaped the session, to showcase Mulally’s personality for consumers. Mulally jumped into the fray again, when a consumer tweeted to Monty that he had gone on a second test drive of a Ford vehicle and was undecided. The consumer asked Monty to get Mullally to call him to help him decide. To the consumer’s shock, Mullally called. The consumer went on to buy a Ford, and then detailed his experience in a blog post, which was picked up in other media.

“You can’t have every customer interact with the CEO, but you can do it when it makes a difference,” said Monty.

Other social media campaigns include a 10-city tour to connect with Twitter users to promote the redesigned Taurus, and a contest where young filmmakers were invited to create short films about the Mustang. Out of 400 entries, 20 finalists were chosen and flown to the LA Auto Show where the winner was announced.

A current campaign is the Fiesta Movement, to promote the new Fiesta, already available in Europe but not yet for sale in the United States. Ford brought 100 of the cars into the country and gave them to bloggers. So far, there have been 4.3 million views of the bloggers’ Fiesta-related videos on YouTube, and 540,000 views of their Flickr photos, as well as three million tweets.

So far, 50,000 people have asked dealers for information on the car, which isn’t even for sale here yet. And, 97% of those folks aren’t current Ford owners.

All of Ford’s social media content—both internally created and from outside bloggers and media—is aggregated on TheFordStory.com. The company also hosts an online newsroom specifically to provide Web ready images and press releases to bloggers and other social media users, at ford.digitalsnippets.com.

Prior to joining Ford about a year ago, Monty was admittedly not a car guy. But should anyone question his commitment as a driver now, it should be noted that the day before his keynote he was stranded in Las Vegas when his flight got cancelled. He of course, quickly rented a car and drove the 4 ½ hours to San Diego.

The type of car he rented? A Volvo. “They’re still a part of the Ford family for a little while longer,” he said with a smile.