When Andrew Davis first joined the UK’s thriving social media sector four years ago, he never imagined that his peers would now regard him as both a veteran and an expert. With both the media and industry insiders hailing Davis as an authority, his rise to success has been as rapid as the growth of the social networks he has come to represent.
The Guardian newspaper ranked Davis number 17 in its 2007 ‘Minority Report’ – a countdown of the Top 30 most important ethnic minority contributors to the British media industry. He was the only entrant aged under 30.
Davis followed this up in 2008 by becoming the only person listed in both the prestigious Media Week Top ‘30 under 30’ rundown of the most talented individuals in the UK and Broadcast magazine’s ‘Hot Shots’ list of media insiders tipped for future success.
Davis’ media career began at the BBC’s digital radio station 1Xtra, which he helped to launch, before being headhunted by MySpace.com in 2006. The social networking giant had just set up a UK division and needed a small team of specialists who could plan and deliver strategic marketing initiatives to engage and retain users, increase traffic across the site and attract global brands. As one of the first employees to join, Davis was involved in multiple parts of the business and displayed a natural passion for the challenging and competitive social media market.
During his employment, Davis engineered viral campaigns with celebrities to generate millions of pounds worth of worldwide media coverage for MySpace.com. The participants included A-listers such as Beyonce, Jay Z, P. Diddy, Pharrell Williams and Jennifer Lopez – to name a few. He also negotiated contra and sponsorship deals with big brands such as Reebok, the BBC and the British government, before fulfilling the bold vision to make MySpace the first social network to achieve product placement within a video game; Konami’s best selling Pro Evolution Soccer 2008. He also earned the internal award for ‘Best Global MySpace TV Initiative’ after partnering with MTV to launch a presenter search on MySpace, which was subsequently commissioned into a full TV series.
Andrew has since established a training business dedicated to facilitating schools by working with their students and teaching social media. This led to his course being the 1st ever social media course assessed with GCSE English coursework. He is also a spokesperson for the social media industry, imparting his knowledge through presenting, mentoring and public speaking. Recent events and brands that Andrew has worked with includes BBC, The Guardian, Kiss FM and Channel 4.
Andrew also published his first ever Ebook and Ecourse called “The 10 Commandments of Music and Social Media”, which features contribution from Atlantic Records, iTunes, Bebo, MTV, Sony BMG, PRS and more. The Ebook can be found on his a popular blog site at www.theworstkeptsecret.com
