AC

Ford Motor has high hopes for Fiesta, a popular model abroad launching in the U.S. next year. So how does it introduce the subcompact car to Americans? A massive ad blitz on TV? In-house promotions at dealers nationwide? Nope. In April, Ford tapped 100 top bloggers and gave them a Fiesta for six months. The catch: Once a month, they're required to upload a video on YouTube about the car, and they're encouraged to talk — no holds barred — about the Fiesta on their blogs, Facebook and Twitter. "It's extremely important to this company's history," says Scott Monty, whose job as head of social media at Ford was created about a year ago to take advantage of the growing social-networking wave. "It's about culture change and adapting to this ongoing way of communicating. The bloggers are fully free to say what they want." Social-media services, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and countless other websites, have had a profound effect on how millions of Americans — especially those...