Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Founder operating in the Social Media Marketing space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Dhruv Ghulati
Co-Founder and CEO of Factmata
Dhruv holds a Distinction in Computer Science and Machine Learning from University College London, and a 1st Class BSc in Economics from the LSE. He was a product manager and co-founder of two London based machine intelligence startups, and is an Entrepreneur First alum and Forbes 30 Under 30 leader in Technology. He wrote his thesis in cost-sensitive classification and distant supervision for statistical claim detection.
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About Factmata: Factmata is an artificial intelligence company for automated content understanding..
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Dylan Collins
Co-Founder and CEO of SuperAwesome
Dylan Collins is one of Europe’s most experienced digital media entrepreneurs, focusing on games, kids entertainment and the technology which underpins them. He is CEO of SuperAwesome, the #1 kid-safe brand engagement platform. SuperAwesome works with the biggest kids entertainment brands in the world including Disney, Hasbro, Warner Bros and Activision ensuring they connect safely with over a quarter of a billion kids each month. An active investor and advisor across both kids media and technology companies, he is Venture Partner with Hoxton Ventures and sits on the board of the UK’s top-rated marketing technology agency, Potato and Brown Bag Films, Europe’s leading kids animation studio. Previously Collins founded Jolt Online Gaming which became one of the pioneering social games publishers in Europe. Jolt was acquired by GameStop (NYSE: GME), the largest video games retailer in the world in 2009 to spearhead their digital media strategy. As founder and CEO of DemonWare in 2003, he led the company to become the leading online games technology firm in the global console games market. In 2007, DemonWare was acquired by Activision Blizzard (NYSE: ATVI), the world’s biggest video games publisher and is now the multiplayer backbone of the billion-dollar Call of Duty franchise.
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About Box of Awesome, brown bag films, Hoxton Ventures, Potato, SuperAwesome: SuperAwesome offers kid-safe tools and technology for the children’s digital media ecosystem.
Muayyad Shehadeh
Co-Founder and CEO of Uhive
Over 25 years of experience, CEO of Genie9, BigMIND and UHIVE A long and broad experience in machine learning algorithms and A.I. systems.Created BigMIND cloud which was the first cloud solution to utilise cold and hot storage, and integrate A.I, Muayyad has a degree in Architecture. He is well known as a Windows C++/WIN API Guru with deep conceptual thinking; which is an ability he developed and enhanced through his Architecture degree Spent last 5 years working on UHive Social Network Idea
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About Uhive, Zoolz: Uhive is a social network that lets users socialize, interact, and find people across the world while earning its own digital currency.
Scott Button
Co-Founder & CSO of Unruly
Scott Button is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Unruly. Scott has 15 years’ experience in madtech. Before founding Unruly in 2006, Scott was a Chief Executive Officer of Connextra, a venture-backed UK ad serving firm, which he led to trade sale in 2005. Scott holds an M.A. from Cambridge and a B.Phil. from Oxford, both in Philosophy, and was named an E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year in 2012.
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About Unruly: Unruly is an advertising technology company that gets videos watched, tracked, and shared across the Open Web.
Caspar Lee
Co-Founder & Chief Visionary Officer of Influencer
Lee started his YouTube channel ‘dicasp’ in 2011, and later renamed it to simply ‘Caspar’. As of November 2017, Lee’s main YouTube channel has over 7.5 million subscribers and over 850 million video views, and is the 243rd most subscribed channel on the website; his second channel “morecaspar” has nearly 2 million subscribers and over 116 million video views. Lee was part of the ‘YouTube Boyband’ that raised money in 2014 for Comic Relief and was featured in The Guardian. He was named by Yahoo! News as one of “12 Web-savvy entrepreneurs to watch” in December 2013. In 2014 he starred, along with a number of other YouTubers, in the Style Haul series The Crew, described by teen website Sugarscape.com as “the male version of Loose Women, but a bit less pervy”. He featured in a 2014 episode of the American television series Web Therapy. Lee has over 6.1 million followers on Twitter and over 3.6 million on Instagram, as of April 2018. Lee played a character named Garlic in the comedy movie Spud 3: Learning to Fly, alongside fellow YouTuber Troye Sivan. In the UK version of the 2015 movie The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, he played the voice of a seagull. Lee and Joe Sugg are featured in a 2015 travel documentary, Joe and Caspar Hit the Road, and its sequel Joe and Caspar Hit The Road: USA, produced for BBC Worldwide. Also in 2016, Lee starred in Laid in America alongside YouTube comedian KSI (Olajide Olatunji). Lee appeared in the music video for Charli XCX’s 2017 single, Boys. In August 2017, it was announced that Lee would become Chief Innovation Officer of Influencer Ltd, a British influencer marketing agency. He has a series of videos where he comically interviews celebrities such as One Direction’s Liam Payne, actor Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, and a few others.
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About Banquist, Dash Water, FaceIT, Fy, Influencer, JustWears, Margravine, Proper Living, Streamloots, theUp.co, Wild, YouTube: We build meaningful relationships between brands and creators.
Mats Stigzelius
Founder of Takumi
Having started his career at McKinsey & Company, Mats Stigzelius has spent the last dozen years working in Strategy Consulting and Private Equity. His experience includes developing brand strategies, implementing business plans and arranging financing for companies across a number of industries in Europe and North America, including Retail, Consumer Goods, Financial Services, Media and Telecoms sectors. Before joining Rainmaking in January 2010, Mats spent five years in Private Equity with a focus on the Retail sector, completing 15 acquisitions, refinancings and exits in that period, in addition to sitting on the board of a number of companies as a Non-Executive Director. Mats holds a 1st Class Masters Degree in Aerospace Engineering from Manchester University and over the years he has lived in Finland, Holland, USA and the UK. Mats currently lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife and two young sons.
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About Rainmaking, Takumi: Takumi is a platform that gives large brands and advertising agencies access to branded influencer creative at scale.
Gummi Eggertsson
Co-Founder,COO & CFO of Takumi
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About Sidekick Health, Takumi: Takumi is a platform that gives large brands and advertising agencies access to branded influencer creative at scale.
David Kershaw
Co-Founder ,CEO & Exec Director of M&C Saatchi
David Kershaw is a founding director of M&C Saatchi. He joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1982 after obtaining an MBA at London Business School. He became managing director in 1990 and was made chairman and chief executive of the UK agency in 1994.
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About M&C Saatchi: M&C Saatchi Group is a creative company that connects specialist expertise, fuelled by data and technology.
Mike Adam
Founder and Architect of Amigo Technology
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About Amigo Technology: Amigo is a cloud-based marketing technology platform that turns marketing ideas into brilliant digital experiences.
Mikhail Gerchuk
Founder of agenda.video
Mikhail Gerchuk is the founder of agenda.video. He is also the chief executive officer for UEurasion at VEON, the 7th largest global mobile operator in 11 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. Prior to joining agenda.video he became a board member at EclecticIQ.
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About agenda.video: agenda.video produces marketing videos for internet and social media.
Martin Adams
Co-Founder & CEO of Codec
Martin is an international keynote speaker on innovation, artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies, and the Founder and CEO of Codec.ai. Codec.ai has raised millions & uses artificial intelligence to identify new target audiences and understand what content and products they want to consume, all before brands have to guess. Codec won ‘the Best Artificial Intelligence Product in Marketing’ award at CognitionX and has been named one of the ‘Hottest AI Businesses in Europe’ by TechCrunch. Martin has been recognised as one of the UK’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs by Maserati and as an innovation advisor he has worked with some of the most high-profile individuals and organisations in the world on how to use technology to be more innovative and connect more deeply with real people- including companies like Pfizer and Red Bull and governmental organisations like the Royal Marines. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and the Co-Founder of the Social Media Unit @ UCL and the Digital Leadership Council.
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About Ambient Tone, Codec, CognitionX, Digital Leadership Council, London Speaker Bureau, University College London (UCL): We help brands to discover and tap in to the pockets of culture that drive growth. Powered by award-winning AI.
Tomi Aiyeola
Co-Founder of XPO
Co-founder @ XPO
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About XPO: We pay creator invoices, crazy fast.
Gilbert Corrales
Co-Founder & CEO of Leaf
Gilbert Corrales (born December 3rd, 1982 in Heredia, Costa Rica) is a strategist, entrepreneur and professor. Corrales attended Costa Rica Institute of Technology (BE Computer Science, 2004) and the University of Science and Technology in South Korea (MSc Human Computer Interaction, 2010), where he helped coordinate the first [International Augmented Reality Standards](http://www.perey.com/ARStandardsMeeting.html) meeting. Since 2002, Gilbert’s work has made high profile companies like Unisys, Intel, Microsoft and world-class interactive agency Schematic achieve success in crafting new and exiting experiences. In 2009, Gilbert joined the Imaging Media Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology as a Research Scientist, where both Discovr Korea and the Discovr Places’ Platform saw the light of day as part of his Masters Thesis. Gilbert’s current focus is in crafting the best social experiences for travelers around the world on top of the [Discovr Places’](http://www.discovr.net) Platform, helping people make the most of their trips on the go, wherever they go.
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About Discovr Places, Leaf: Leaf, previously Leaf Grow, is a tech company that provides end-to-end performance marketing services for ambitious eCommerce businesses.
Helga Alvarez
Co-Founder & VP Engineering of Leaf
Helga Alvarez is the Co-Founder & VP Engineering at Leaf Grow.
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About Leaf: Leaf, previously Leaf Grow, is a tech company that provides end-to-end performance marketing services for ambitious eCommerce businesses.
Jenny Tsai
Founder & CEO of Wearisma
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About Wearisma: Wearisma is a premium influencer marketing solution for brands, agencies & influencers.
Alessandra Di Lorenzo
CEO & Founder of LM Forward
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About LM Forward: LM Forward is a marketing services company that offers media and content activations.
Paola Marinone
Founder & CEO of BuzzMyVideos
Founder & CEO at BuzzMyVideos.
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About Blackbox, BuzzMyVideos, TechItalia:Lab: BuzzMyVideos is leading martech company that drives hyper-growth & new revenue from and on YouTube.
Bengu Atamer
Co-Founder & Director of BuzzMyVideos
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About BuzzMyVideos: BuzzMyVideos is leading martech company that drives hyper-growth & new revenue from and on YouTube.
Julian M. Baladurage
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of MBJ LONDON
Julian Baladurage joined MBJ LONDON as CEO & Co-founder in 2011.
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About Forbes New York Business Council, MBJ LONDON: MBJ LONDON is a web and app development company offering Website as a Service.
Paul Williams
Founder of MSL UK
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About AppliedIRC, MSL UK, Occams Creative Technologies: MSL operates a network of serviced office buildings in the United Kingdom and internationally.
Patrick Charlton
Co-Founder & CEO of Buzz Radar
Patrick is a social marketing and digital specialist, with a track record of creating a wide range of award-winning campaigns and projects for some of the world’s most exciting brands. He is co-founder of Buzz Radar, an industry leader in capturing and visualising real-time data. Buzz Radar makes live data of all types collaborative, easy to understand and shareable for everyone. He works with some of the world’s largest events, brands and retail spaces, including Twitter, Samsung, Nike, Google, adidas, Intel, Skype, Marks And Spencer, IBM, Red Bull and Adobe, helping them create a culture of listening and marketing in the moment. Over his career, Patrick has been lucky enough to lead major-ground breaking projects on multiple global social engagement campaigns, providing leadership, strategy, production savvy, creative direction and client management in a fast-paced, demanding environment with an online audience in the tens of millions.
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About Buzz Radar: Buzz Radar is an industry leader in making data, insightful, accessible and actionable
Tristan Hotham
Founder of The Social Media Research Centre
I am an expert in social media and politics, founder of the Social Media Research Centre and PhD graduate. I am a researcher and consultant of campaigning, politics and social media. I hold a PhD from the University of Bath in the use of Facebook as a campaign tool. I utilise a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies to examine the black box of social media campaigning. I founded the Social Media Research Centre, a research house and consultancy that strives to make social media research better. We do two things; we examine social media developing reports that explain the impacts of social media and we help others in making the most of their social media research. We focus on helping others undertake ethical analysis of social media through quantitative and qualitative methods, while offering communication services such as writing reports and developing media strategy. My work has been published in books, journals, blogs and podcasts. Some of my research has even made it into the news such as in The Observer or Evening Standard, while I myself have featured in the news as an expert including in the New York Times, Reuters, Economist and Telegraph among others.
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About The Social Media Research Centre: The Social Media Research Centre is a research house and consultancy that strives to make social media research better.
Matthew Woods
Co-Founder of AFK Creators
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About AFK Creators: Influencer Management and Marketing Agency, Gaming and Esports
Phil Spilsbury
Founder and CMO of zubbit.io
Phil Spilsbury has been in the Tech and Software Industry for over 30 years. He’s worked for a number of software companies building world class software systems used across the world in leading Retail and Logistics companies. Since 2011 he’s been running his own businesses, at first offering high end software consultancy for international and UK goverment clients but now taking his 30 years experience and expertise in the online and tech space to build world-class products for the internet age. Currently focusing down on his latest SaaS project zubbit.io with his co-founder Ron Perkins. Helping people and companies marketing and advertising online to use any online content to drive focused, targeted traffic to their business and services, and helping them build targeted advertising audiences 24-7 on auto-pilot using zubbit.io
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About : zubbit.io Driving Traffic via Content. Don’t Just Share it, zubbit!
Ron Perkins
Founder and CTO of zubbit.io
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About : zubbit.io Driving Traffic via Content. Don’t Just Share it, zubbit!
Ron Perkins
Founder and CTO of zubbit.io
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About : zubbit.io Driving Traffic via Content. Don’t Just Share it, zubbit!
Stephen Pomeroy
Chief Executive & Founder of HardHat
cStephen is a high-level strategist and communications expert in business and media communications, with over 20 years’ experience in devising and implementing communications strategies in both the private and public sectors. He has provided advice, has managed and been instrumental in countless campaign programmes for international, national and regional clients.
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About HardHat: HardHat is a specialist communications consultancy for the property, development, energy and infrastructure sectors.
Fivos Pantazis
Founder of Aphetor
Fivos Pantazis is the Founder at Aphetor.
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About Aphetor: Aphetor is the next generation, creator-based sports/entertainment property for the next generation of fans
Carsten Thode
Founder of Aphetor
Carsten Thode is the Founder at Aphetor.
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About Aphetor: Aphetor is the next generation, creator-based sports/entertainment property for the next generation of fans
Javier Burón
Co-Founder & CEO of Audiense
Javier Burón is a dedicated internet enthusiast with wide experience in social media and has spoken at many events across Europe. Entrepreneur by nature, he has gained in-depth knowledge in this area over the last five years thanks to numerous successful consulting projects, and designing and developing a wide variety of social apps (e24apps.com). Javier Burón has a Masters in Information Systems, Computing Engineering and is a recent past lecturer at Córdoba University.
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About Audiense: Audiense is a develops delivering unique consumer insight and engagement capabilities to many of the world’s biggest brands and agencies.
Jonathan Gan
Founder of Whichit
Founder of Whichit.
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About Whichit: Whichit is an Interactive Commercial Content platform to increase user engagement, open new revenue streams and gain actionable insights
Marcus Dyson
Founder & Lead Developer of Fuelmywebsite
Founder & Lead Developer at Fuelmywebsite
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About Fuelmywebsite: Fuelmywebsite has over 70,000 global bloggers and blog database of over 1.5m.
Ajay Mathur
Co-Founder of Gleanin
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About Gleanin: Gleanin help event organisers leverage the social web.
Paul Birch
Co-Founder of Gleanin
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About Gleanin: Gleanin help event organisers leverage the social web.
Peter Richards
Co-Founder & CTO of Gleanin
Peter Richards is a Co-Founder & CTO at Glean.in.
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About Gleanin: Gleanin help event organisers leverage the social web.
Steven Lloyd-Barlow
Co-Founder | Director of vidbuild
vidbuild is the brainchild of Film & Media Production Director, Steven Lloyd-Barlow. After a career in managing film and TV shoots on a large scale, Steven recognised the cost and budget constraints that small businesses face in video production. The cost and expertise required to develop media in-house, or the cost involved to outsource the work simply outpriced most small to medium sized enterprises. As video content is the number one performer in global marketing, SME’s were suffering hugely in being locked out of this game. Steven sought VC funding through now parent-company Car Cloud Ventures, and partnered successfully with some of the worlds largest stock video providers (Getty, iStock & Storyblocks). With 5 years of development work completed within six months, and beta launch in early 2018, vidbuild was born.
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About : Online Video Maker – Make Your Own Professional Videos in Minutes
Steve Wright
Founder & CEO of Captini
Steve Wright is the Founder & CEO at Captini.
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About Captini: Captini transforms Guest WiFi networks into an automated marketing service that increases customer return rates.
Luke Brynley-Jones
Founder , MD , Social Media Consultant & Social Media Speaker of Our Social Times
A social media expert, entrepreneur and start-up advisor with 10 years of experience developing online communities and social networks, Luke currently advises leading brands on business “socialisation” and marketing. He specialises in social media monitoring and engagement marketing. A member of the UK’s CIPR Social Media Monitoring Committee and advisor to several start-ups, including MarketMeSuite, Luke is a regular conference speaker in the UK and US. Through Our Social Times, he also hosts an annual series of social media marketing conferences in London, New York, San Francisco and Paris. Back in 2001, Luke founded and ran the UK’s first online community consultancy. Major clients included British Airways, YMCA, General Teaching Council and NESTA. In 2005 he launched etribes.com, the popular blogging and photo-sharing service, covering the roles of both Product Manager and Marketing Manager. In 2006 he brokered the sale of etribes to Midentity and joined Trutap as Head of Product. At Trutap, Luke was responsible for the design and development of the Trutap mobile social network, which launched in November 2008 and grew to nearly 400,000 members.
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About Our Social Times: Our Social Times are a UK-based social media agency.
Aravind Sopinti
Founder of 9tree.co.uk
Founder at 9tree
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About 9tree.co.uk, 9tree.co.uk: 9tree provides IT consulting, digitalization, and managed services.
Luke Ballantyne
Co-Founder, Director of WhotNow
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About WhotNow: WhotNow is the app that rewards you for going out.
Giovanbattista Cimmino
CEO and Founder of SocialAsk
Giovanbattista Cimmino is an entrepreneur in the hospitality and digital industry. CEO and founder of the London-based social media agency SocialAsk, founder of the Remodels agency and creator of the Model Restaurant platform. Giovanbattista is the co-founder of Kowa Restaurant and Osteria Romana.
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About Entrepreneur.com, SocialAsk: SocialAsk is a London-based social media agency specialized in social media marketing and online reputation management.
Harry Cymbler
Founder and owner of Hot Cherry | Digital PR & Social Media Agency London, UK
Harry Cymbler is the Founder and owner of Hot Cherry, the London PR agency trusted by the world’s most innovative startups, SMEs and global brands, including Disney, Tate Modern and Spotify. For all enquiries, please contact hello@hotcherry.co.uk
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About Hot Cherry | Digital PR & Social Media Agency London, UK: London PR agency trusted by the world’s most innovative startups, SMEs and global brands, including Disney, Tate Modern and Spotify.
Tim Redgate
Co-Founder of EchoMany Limited
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About EchoMany Limited: The UK’s leading 1:1 personalised video platform.
Michael Maven
Founder of Topgrowthexperts.com
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About CatchAndRetain.com, Topgrowthexperts.com: Topgrowthexperts.com helps companies to be discovered online and to generate leads and sales.
Jayson Webb
Sales Director / Founder of Telsa Media
Internet marketing Guru, app development, website development. Pay Per Click Expert
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About Telsa Media: Digital Marketing, Web Design, SEO, PPC and Lead Generation Services Provider Company
