Meet the influencers: Andrew and Pete
We continue our new monthly series of digital influencer interviews by having a chat with Andrew Pickering and Pete Gartland, better known as Andrew and Pete. We discover more about their journey from university friends to successful content marketers, and the tools they rely on to capture their audience.
Where did your story begin?
We met at university in 2008 after getting randomly placed in the same halls of residence together. We decided we wanted to set up in business, and when we graduated in 2011 we just went for it! We didn't get corporate jobs like everyone else did—the need to make money straight away fuelled us to work hard!
How did you become so influential?
We shared what we knew and what we were learning, in our blogs and YouTube videos, to build areas. Especially in our local area, we found a lot of other marketing consultants and agencies were doing a lot of talking—but not a lot of practicing what they preached. So we made sure we not only learned from the best but actually put in place what we were learning.
Do you have any golden rules/mantras for life or work?
Haha... well Andrew's favourite TV show at the moment is Scandal, and he's been taking a leaf out of Olivia Pope's book and shouting in the office... 'We're NEVER out of options' whenever we hit a wall in brainstorms. But it does kind of sum us up—there's always a way to do something that seems out of reach if you're willing to work for it. We look for what we call 'Big Dominos' in every situation, which are big things we can strive for that makes everything easier—and we put 110% into knocking the Big Domino over.
What are your three biggest tips for building an audience?
- You can't create content that’s all about you. You should aim to inform, inspire or entertain your audience.
- Focus on ONE platform. It's hard to grow every platform simultaneously.
- Do something different. In our book Content Mavericks we talk about creating your 'Content Stamp'—your unique spin on your content that makes you unique and shareable.
What are your favourite tools/software?
We swear by Agorapulse for managing our social notifications and scheduling and managing our content with our team. It's the best!
Find out more about Andrew and Pete’s magic touch on their website and follow them on Twitter.