Trust is the ultimate key for marketing anything. The more people who trust in what you know and say, the more willing they are to spread the word. Trust is the key to “Word of Mouth” which  is an extremely viral aspect in marketing. The more people that trust you means that even more people will come to trust you through relations and be passionate with what you do and say.

It is not what you know but, who you know that will get your through life.

Several, example businesses both for good and bad.

Google – This is one of the most famous examples of a trust based company. It has had a notoriously low marketing budget, with no real world advertising. They have built their business through users trust in the search results and spread into other trust-worthy services.

Digg – This company took off because of fans of Kevin Rose trusted in the service he was providing. It was his own ability to build trust in the tech community to provide the user base for his service.

eBay – This is a recent failure, it built itself up into a trustworthy business after years of being around. Recently, it has lost people due to it’s inability to adapt to the I want it now mentality, as an auction site.

Any Social Network – These sites just don’t work without other users, so you have to either market it heavily or hope that the early adopters love it enough to spread it around.

Familiarity is another key to gaining trust that allows your to become connected. Familiarity provides an easy way to provide a setting that people will be able to easily connect with. You can provide them with tools they already know how to use or, be focused in the same areas as they are, allowing them easy entry into the subject.

These are the way to spread an idea, product, or service. You provide them what they want or something they don’t know they need. Let your early adopters spread the idea to their friends, this is the reason what you do needs to be remarkable and memorable. Don’t knock off developed products you will not steal it’s users by doing that and it will hurt you in the long run, because there will be no trust in your abilities.