Like every other eighteen or nineteen year old male human some twenty, fresh out of an all boys boarding school, and now a freshman starting their journey at a prestigious Kenyan University, one sight to behold was all the beautiful ladies walking around and we were allowed to talk to them without any teachers looking at us with the “bombastic” side eye.
From the awkward first hello, to the crammed pickup lines we saw on YouTube (Vines), to going for lectures at a friend’s class just so you could get a chance to talk to that one girl. I still have a letter that my friend Max (now one of the best Product Designers in the business) once wrote to a girl while we were still in 1st year, unfortunately it was end of Semester and Makena (the muse) had already finished her exam a day prior and gone home for the long holiday. I’m keeping the letter to show his children someday.
Various different methods and tactics were employed towards this very noble cause. Simpler times those ones. Even so, within all that frenzy, you would find yourself talking to various different girls but only one or two would give you their attention however much you tried.
I never really understood why, until much later. I always assumed that once you made her laugh, she would automatically fall for you.
The one or two girls who gave you their attention knew you somehow, they were either a friend of a friend, an acquaintance or had already seen you around campus.
In short they were familiar with you and could somewhat trust you.
I only understood much later that just like I wouldn’t just trust anyone to come into my life, that girl who I was wowing with my crammed pickup lines the first time we met would not just trust me simply because I made her laugh, she’d have to know me a bit more, see me around campus, probably see the people I hang out with as well.
Seeing me around more, would create that trust that would then lead to us knowing each other more, not that one great pickup line.
This same principle applies to marketing, the more people see your product, the more they trust it, they become familiar with it.
This is the whole purpose of billboards placed along busy highways, especially those frequented by people who go to work in the morning and back home in the evening. To create familiarity and awareness.
I have never used Grammarly before, but I know exactly what that product does and I have found myself recommending it to others a few times, simply because I have seen their Ads on YouTube continuously for years now.
I will probably never play the above game simply because it’s not my kind of game, but at this point I’m starting to believe that it must be a really great game, why? Because YouTube decided that this is the only Ad that I should be seeing.
Familiarity breeds trust, the more you see something, the more you start to see the benefits of having or using it.
As a small founder, you may not have the budget that Grammarly has thus you have to be your own chief influencer.
Talk about what you are working on a lot, take screenshots and short videos of how your product or business operates and share them as frequently as you can.
When possible, share social proof of real people who use your product, success stories, this is what leads to trust.
More than anything, be real and be natural, don’t force things. Just because you post a lot doesn’t mean it’s content worth looking at.
Remember you are talking to humans online, do it as though you were in the same room.
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