You’ll hear how Ford started to build buzz and anticipation with social media a year before the Fiesta was brought to the United States, and how this impacted their sales.

Watch the video to hear about the other ways Ford is using social media and be sure to check out the takeaways below.

This video is full of business insights for social media. Here are some of the things you’ll want to listen for.

Use Social Media For Pre-launches

Discover how Ford used social media to pre-launch the Ford Fiesta to:

• Get socially vibrant people to spread their message
• Focus on getting other people to tell people about Ford

In the Fiesta launch Ford converted ten times more reservations into orders than with a traditional vehicle launch

Leverage Facebook Communities

Learn why Ford has a strong representation across different Facebook pages to:

• Give people content to share and ask Facebook readers for more content

You’ll hear how Ford Revealed the Ford Explorer on Facebook instead of at an auto show and how this had greater impact than with a Super Bowl ad

Other Key Insights From Scott

Scott’s biggest social media lesson: integrated marketing communications.  Find out how Scott learned to use paid, owned and earned media together for successful marketing.

Hear about how Ford is catering to mobile devices with the new MyFord Touch system, and how Ford has made the API for their Sync system open to the public so Ford can benefit from outside talent and build a stronger community.

Learn more about Ford’s new Focus Rally America, an interactive Ford Rally competition, driven with social media to create awareness for their brand and connect with their audience.

Check out The Ford Story and find Ford as well as Ford Focus on Facebook.

What’s your favorite takeaway from this video? Please share your comments below.

If your business is not yet on Twitter, this article is for you. Creating a Twitter profile is quick and easy to do; however, you want to make sure you take the right steps when setting up your Twitter accounts.

This is the first of a two-part series of tips for creating Twitter profiles to both facilitate engagement with your Twitter audience and build a strong brand online.

#1: Set Up Your Twitter Account

You should always try to secure Twitter accounts for your real name and your company name to ensure no-one else grabs them.  And businesses should also consider getting Twitter names for any major brands they own. This choice of Twitter names raises some other questions when setting up your Twitter account.

Should you consider having multiple accounts? Twitter can be time-consuming. This is why it’s easier to have one main account. But if you have different conversations with different audiences, it makes sense to have different Twitter accounts.  Two common reasons for having multiple Twitter accounts are to:

• Separate professional and personal tweets
• Tweet in different languages

Should you use a company account or a personal account? Or both? It depends on your company, how you intend to tweet and whom you want to interact with on Twitter. Watch this video to hear how Ann Handley tweets under @marketingprofs. And this one in which Scott Monty talks about how Ford uses Twitter.

Ann Handley tweets under the Twitter name @MarketingProfs for www.MarketingProfs.com and openly associates her name to the Marketing Profs Twitter profile.

#2: Choose Your Twitter Name.

Here are some guidelines to help you choose your Twitter name:

• Your Twitter name is limited to a maximum of 15 characters.
• Although Twitter names are not case-sensitive, Twitter will save the name exactly as you enter it when you create your Twitter profile. So although you can create your profile with “JohnSmith” and be listed as @JohnSmith, your Twitter fans will be able to find you by using @johnsmith.
• Avoid names with numbers, uncommon abbreviations and names that are difficult to remember. Keep mobile users in mind and avoid underscores, which require extra steps to type in on mobile phones.

Are you still wondering which Twitter name to choose?  Look for a name easy to relate to who you are and what you represent.

Use your real name or company name? Most people open up more to the Twitter names they recognize as a real person’s name or a company name they trust. If you’re using Twitter for brand management, you will probably want to use your website name (without the “.com”).  You can also use a pen name you use regularly.

Doreen Iannuzzi at Diversity Media Services combines both her name and the abbreviation of her company name.

Seesmic.com uses their name for their Twitter handle.

Keywords. A Twitter name with a keyword may work well for you if you make it obvious who you are. But for most people, a keyword Twitter name is also associated with spammers and those who push unwanted sales pitches.

Gabriella Sannino uses keywords to target her primary audience.

#3: Upload Your Picture

It’s important to change the default picture to show others you are a real person and not a spambot and you can get a little creative to show your personality.

As Denise Wakeman points out, you may want to use the same picture on all of your social media profiles. This creates stronger online branding as people will notice the same photo on different social media platforms.

Dan Waldschmidt’s photo matches the “outrageous vision” mentioned in his bio.

#4: Use Your Best Link

You only have one active link on your Twitter profile. And before choosing this link, you need to give some thought to your overall online web marketing strategy.  Why are you online?  Where do you want to lead your Twitter followers?  For most people, the link you have on your Twitter profile will go to your website or blog.  This link can easily be changed.

You should also give some thought to the exact page your Twitter visitors will land on when they click the link on your Twitter profile.

• You can create a specific page for your Twitter followers. A good way to do this on your blog is to create a list of people you recommend others to follow on Twitter.
• You can link to a social media profile such as OneForty like @AmyPorterfield.
• If you’re a blogger, linking to your blog is a good option.

#5: Write an Interesting Twitter Bio

It’s important to tell your Twitter followers who you are and what you’ll be tweeting about.  Unfortunately you only have 160 characters to do this in your Twitter bio. It’s usually best to write short sentences to engage the people who read your bio.  But you should also weave in a few important keywords relevant to the people you want to meet on Twitter.  Keywords will help the right people find you.

Judy Dunn creates an engaging picture in her Twitter bio.

It’s easy to want to take up the offer Mike CJ makes in his Twitter bio.

Mari Smith suggests you mention the link to your Facebook Fan Page in your Twitter bio or on your Twitter background as mentioned below. Although this will not be an active link, it should be easy to remember if you have a vanity URL, and it will help grow your Facebook activity.

After completing these five steps, there’s one final step—creating a Twitter backdrop. In the second part of this series of tips covering your Twitter profile, you’ll find out how to use your Twitter background to create a more engaging Twitter presence.

Do you have any Twitter advice to add? Do you use your personal name or your company name to tweet for your business? Please share your tips below.

A well-designed business blog:

1. Uses visual interest to make posts easy to read
2. Brands your business in a consistent way
3. Places useful information in places where it is easy to find
4. Isn’t cluttered with things that aren’t helping you promote your business
5. Makes it easy for readers to do what you want them to do

Good blog design is practical

While there are many elements that go into designing a blog that grabs attention and engages readers, here are seven elements that must be integrated at the outset. You can develop the visual look and feel over time, but start here to begin building relationships, trust and credibility:

1. Graphic header with name of blog, tag line and author name
2. Email subscribe form
3. About page with photo
4. Use a variety of media: text, video, audio
5. Plenty of white space to make it easy to read
6. Links to share your content
7. Links for readers to connect on your social networking sites

To illustrate each of these points, I’ve made a short video showing blogs that incorporate these elements.

If you would like to study these blogs in more depth, here are the links:

• ChrisG.com
• Mari Smith’s blog
• Nuts About Southwest
• Build a Better Blog
• Altitude Branding
• Comcast Voices
• The Social Media Marketing Blog
• Wine Library TV
• Social Media Marketing Strategies
• The Social Media Handyman
• Copyblogger
• JimKukral.com
• Street Smarts Marketing

What are the essential design elements you think belong in a business blog? Please share your ideas in the comments and link to blogs that illustrate best practices.

Tons of nominations came in.  Our panel of social media experts carefully reviewed the nominees and finalists. What follows are the winners of Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Social Media Blogs for 2010.

If you’re looking to reap the rewards of social media, these rich blogs need to be at the top of your reading list.

1. Chris Brogan: The Elvis of social media and the king of common sense, Chris Brogan is in a league of his own.
2. Social Media Explorer: Social media all-star Jason Falls provides a fresh and interesting take on all things social media.
3. Mashable: The world’s source for social media news, Mashable is the place to go for breaking stories.
4. Convince & Convert: Jay Baer provides rich content for businesses seeking to embrace social media.
5. Altitude: Amber Naslund offers a breath of fresh air with smart, inspiring and personal social media insight.
6. CopyBlogger: The king of engaging content, Brian Clark and his team help businesses persuade in a 2.0 world.
7. Brand Builder: For businesses looking to dive deep into social media discussion, check out Olivier Blanchard’s rich insights.
8. Diva Marketing: Toby Bloomberg’s blog provides a wide array of social media advice.
9. Kikolani: Looking for great “getting started” social media guidance?  Then frequent this blog.
10. Future Buzz: A nice mix of stories and reviews makes Adam Singer’s site one that should be on your radar.

Congratulations to the winners. Be sure to check out these amazing blogs!

Share the love: Feel free to post the above list on your blog (just reference this post).

The badge of distinction: If you’re a winner, feel free to post the image you see here on your blog and please link back to this page.

A special thanks to our judges! Thanks to Scott Monty (Ford), Ann Handley (MarketingProfs) and David Meerman Scott (author New Rules of Marketing and PR) for your participation.

Do you frequent any of these blogs? Share your comments below.

There are some real gems among these 21 finalists. Our judges Scott Monty (Ford), Ann Handley (MarketingProfs) and David Meerman Scott (author New Rules of Marketing and PR) are finishing up their reviews of these sites.

The judges

Here are the finalists:

• Altitude
• Blog of Shani Sammons
• BrandBuilder
• Buzz Marketing Daily
• Chris Brogan
• CopyBlogger
• Diva Marketing Blog
• Gray Matter Minute
• Convince & Convert
• Future Buzz
• Jason Keath
• Jeff Bullas Blog
• Kikolani
• Mack Collier
• Mashable
• Mery.net
• Methodical Madness
• Outspoken Media
• Shannon Paul’s Very Official Blog
• Social Media Explorer
• SocialMouths

How We’ll Pick the Winners

1.  Initial qualification:  A blog must have been nominated multiple times by multiple individuals (and be a social media blog).  If someone nominated more than one blog, only the first nomination was counted.

2.  Final winner selection:

• Quality of posts: A qualitative analysis of the content of posts will be examined by our judges.  Educational and discussion-spurring posts are more valuable than self-promoting posts (55% of decision).
• Frequency of posts:  Blogs that write multiple posts per week will score higher.  This is a sign of the blog’s commitment to blogging (15%).
• Reader involvement:  Blogs that have regular comments from readers are another sign of a healthy blog.  In addition, the numbers of nominations for a specific blog play a part in this (15%).
• Blog Ranking: The number of other blogs that link to the blog shows the value of the content (15%).  We’ll use accepted third-party blog ranking systems for this portion of the score.

Congratulations to the finalists!  We will announce the winners here soon!

What do you think about these blogs? Leave your comment below…

As Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motor Company, says, “U.S. brands looking to leverage social networks internationally know that while their messages need to stay consistent regardless of the region, the language, cultural reference points, platform and tactics, all need to be tailored for each market.”

He continues, “Whether it is customer service, IT, HR or product development, there are a number of uses for social media. And when you add to that all of our constituents—customers, employees, shareholders, dealers, retirees—it becomes a very complex assignment.”

Here’s a look at a few of the difficulties and how you can overcome them…

The Information Available

In the past, statistics on social media were difficult to come by and they were not always relevant.  But there are more Internet statistics available today even for social media.  McCann’s Wave 4 Power to the People report  is one resource available to gain insights into how to use social media internationally.

The trouble  with an international social media strategy, as Erik Qualman of Search Engine Watch points out, one size does not fit all. Having more relevant statistics does not get you very far.  You still need to learn how to adapt what you do on social media to effectively connect with people in other countries. And before you can do this, you need to know a bit more about what social media is like over there.

Social Media in Different Regions of the World

A good place to start is to look for general insights into the social media environment in the places you would like to reach.

The Nielsen report Global Faces and Networked Places clearly explains why localization has won the day in many countries and says, “Succeeding in China takes more than producing a translated version; it requires investment in a local infrastructure and a mentality of running a Chinese social network that understands the domestic nuances of social network behaviour rather than simply rolling out a generic social network in Chinese.”

Here are more insights from two social media players well-known in their own countries:

Have a look at this interview of Laurel Papworth in which she gives an analysis on what’s happening in social media in Australia and Southeast Asia.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlhEzAdyCIs

Fred Cavazza says, “The main differences in France‘s social media are based on the local offering and local players: Dailymotion, Skyblog, Viadeo, Dofus, BlogSpirit, CanalBlog, OverBlog… and there are 3 distinct groups in France around culinary, political and IT gadget blogs.”

Fred Cavazza raises a good point. Let’s have a look at the main challenges presented by local offerings and local players.  These are areas where you will need to adapt to fit in with what works in the local social media environment.

Cultural Differences in How People Respond to Social Media

Cultural differences always impact how people use social media. Here are some insights from a few culturally minded social media players.

Engagement—Jack Yan says, “There seems to be a gap between Americans and New Zealanders on Twitter usage, for instance. Kiwis, for the most part, seem to engage a bit more and there are relatively fewer accounts, proportionally, made up of automated tweets. There seems to be more of a demand on American tweeters, for instance, to provide a lot of content, and I suspect that this drives the automation. This arguably comes back to the different cultures: one historically more collaborative, the other historically more individualistic.”

Hesitation—France shares a trait with many countries: hesitation and observation before engaging in new social media. Thierry de Baillon says, “Where Anglo Saxons are prone to quickly dive into new platforms and get new habits, Frenchies stick with old ones, watching others acting while taking their time.”

Networking—Lucy Chatburn sees more networking activity on both LinkedIn and Facebook in Turkey than in the UK. “This could be because networking doesn’t come naturally to many British people. And a LinkedIn profile is definitely not seen as an essential career tool in the UK.”

Shyness—Mixi, a leading social network in Japan, added a special feature to make it easier for people to make friends.

Of course, there are many more ways cultural differences impact social media. Before you can find the right way for your business to connect with people on social media platforms in different countries, you do need to:

• Develop cultural awareness
• Do your research
• Adapt your communication and social approach

Evolution in Local Players

Other challenges in international social media are related to changes in popularity of social media platforms.  A snapshot of the social media environment in any country may not remain current for long.  Social media environments change.

Facebook’s growth has had an impact on many countries outside of North America. Orkut’s popularity in Brazil and India is changing.

This is why it is difficult for businesses to know how to:

• Anticipate where to spend time
• Identify the most relevant social media platforms for their business

Good monitoring practices and a local presence are keys to success.

Can Social Media Help Your International Business?

There are many reasons why this is a tough question to answer.  As we have seen above, statistics do not always reflect how people use social media. There are also:

• Different speeds of adopting social media
• Differences in how locals use social media
• Differences in how businesses can use social media in different countries

On the one hand, local statistics can be misleading.  Another culturally minded social media player, Martin Lindeskog points out that “The broadband/high-speed Internet connection is very common here in Sweden.” However, he also notes that “you can’t find many examples of companies that have embraced a new type of media strategy in full scale yet. There is a lot of talk about Twitter, but you don’t see many companies microblogging.”

On the other hand, although statistics only tell part of the story, a detailed view of the local social media environment can give you valuable insights.  According to Fred Cavazza, the social media market in France was evangelized long ago by local players, and this made the road to success easy to maneuver for Facebook in France.

A Source of Inspiration

In addition to connecting with business networking partners abroad, there is another good reason to keep an ear open for what is happening in international social media: there is richness in diversity.  And this can help you stay in tune with social media as it evolves for everyone.

Monitoring how businesses in other countries use social media helps you to:

• Get ideas for new things to try in your own country
• Spot new trends in other areas of the world which might, in time, affect your own industry

As different people around the world adapt social media to their own cultural tastes and the driving forces in their local markets, we are sure to see:

• More innovation
• Different uses for social media in business
• Opportunities to adapt the strategies and tools we are familiar with to new international markets

Observing these changes and understanding why they fail or succeed increase our understanding of what social media is all about.  Although North American businesses are using social media more than businesses elsewhere, there are many examples of innovation and inspiration to be found outside of North America.  This alone is why following international social media is useful to many businesses.

Now, over to you…

• What have you learned by observing social media in other countries?
• What is the most interesting difference in international social media to you?
• What anecdotes can you share about social media in different countries?

Please share your comments with us below.

In this interview I talk with Scott Monty—head of social media for Ford Motor Company—and the man in charge of Ford’s social media presence and initiatives like TheFordStory.com.

When you think of Ford, you might think “old American car company.” However, under the direction of Scott Monty, Ford has become one of the leading big businesses in America using social media to connect directly with consumers. And it certainly seems that Ford is on the right track to success, recently reporting 1 billion dollars in profit!

In this video, you’ll learn how Ford uses TweetUps to help Ford executives connect with customers across America and how Ford is humanizing its brand. Scott also provides advice to other businesses that are looking to capitalize on social media. Scott also has a little fun, as you’ll see…

VIEW VIDEO HERE NOW:

What did you think about the video? How has your opinion of Ford changed in recent years?