Deloitte’s social media policy “Empower & Trust” – Simon Townsend interview

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Updated on July 8th, 2013

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At Social Media Down Under I interviewed Simon Townsend, the Innovations Manager at Deloitte Australia about their three word social media policy – “Empower And Trust”.

Here is my interview with Simon Townsend.

Adam Franklin: Hi it’s Adam Franklin, and we are at Social Media Down Under. I’m here with one of the speakers, Simon Townsend, who is an innovation manager at Deloitte. Now I’d really like to share with you the key take home from Simon’s presentation. Simon would you mind sharing with our audience what they need to know from your presentation today?

Simon Townsend: Absolutely. For me the key take away would be around empowering trust. What we have done at Deloitte is we have actually created a safe space using social network, where people can learn how to use social media, and how to use that to best effect internally, which they are then using to take that on externally. So it’s a safe space and what we have done is empowered them to use social media, we are trusting them to do so, so part of the empowerment is that not only we are letting people go and letting people do what they like, buts its giving people the tools and the knowledge to actually do that in an effective way.

Adam Franklin: So you’ve taken a 30 page social media policy and condensed it down to 3 words right?

Simon Townsend: That’s right.

Adam Franklin: So what are they?

Simon Townsend: Empower and trust. And when it comes down to it, that’s what it’s all about for us.

Adam Franklin: Absolutely, and great results you’re getting internally aren’t you?

Simon Townsend: Absolutely, we got 90% of people using the space. Not all of them actively adding to it but everyone is reading it and sharing knowledge, and I get lots of comments from people who I know don’t post about what they are reading. So it’s interesting to see how well it permeates through without being actively used by someone who is interested.

Adam Franklin: Awesome. Well thank you for your time, and on twitter @wittering and I’m @Franklin_Adam. Thanks very much.
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Thanks! You can follow Simon Townsend @wittering or Deloitte Australia @Green_Dot.

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Adam Franklin is the bestselling author of Web Marketing That Works. He is an international social media speaker and CEO of Bluewire Media. His blog was Australia's #1 Business Blog and his podcast was #9 on the top marketing podcasts in Entrepreneur magazine. His work has featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Huffington Post and iTunes. Download the popular Web Strategy Planning Template which has been used by hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. His weekly 'Bluewire News' email goes out to over 32,000 readers.