Make Stuff Worth Sharing
Think about the last time a salesperson ambushed you in a store..(these dudes literally be following our movements from a mile away)
“Can I help you find something?”
“I’m just looking,” .. and you lie, suddenly pretending to be fascinated by the stitching on a crop top, and you're a man. :}
You might actually be looking! But the moment you sense someone is aggressively shepherding you toward the cash register, a tiny, heavily armed wall goes up in your brain... You’ve recognized the pattern: Someone wants my money. Someone wants me to force buy
The internet is exactly the same, just louder and with more pop-ups.
“BUY NOW.” “ONLY 2 LEFT IN STOCK (AND 4,000 IN THE WAREHOUSE).” “BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL.”
Before you’ve even figured out what the company actually does, a giant wheel of fortune covers the screen begging for your email address. We have evolved to have superhuman marketing-detection radar.
So, maybe the multi-million-dollar question isn't "How do we force people to buy?"
Maybe it's "What can we make that people actually give a damn about?"
The Spider-Man Effect
Remember a month ago when the latest Spider-Man Brand New Day movie dropped? Suddenly, Spiderman, Tom Holland, Zendaya was our daily instagram feeds and shares. People were dissecting trailers, posting memes of three Spider-Men pointing at each other, and furiously Googling where to buy Spiderman Merch and Mask.
Smart retailers noticed the wave and were ready to ride it. They did just one simple thing, they just stocked Spider-Man hoodies, tees, and merch in their stores. They tossed them online, and the internet did the rest. Friends tagged friends. Group chats lit up. Inventory vanished faster than Thanos snapped his fingers!
Those stores didn't have to spend a dime convincing people to care about Spider-Man. Marvel and the meme economy had already done the heavy lifting. They just noticed where the eyeballs were already glued and put something relevant in the way.
Stop Shouting. Start Showing.
There’s a massive lesson here for marketing. Most brands spend their budgets standing on a digital soapbox, screaming, "LOOK AT US!"
- "We are innovative!"
- "We are customer-centric!"
- "We have 20 years of B2B synergy experience!"
Newsflash: Nobody in the history of human communication has ever opened WhatsApp, eagerly pasted a link to a corporate "About Us" page, and texted, "Bro, you HAVE to read this company's mission statement."
But people will share things that make them say, "Bro, look at this."
- A brutally honest ROI calculator.
- A ridiculous quiz telling them what kind of pasta matches their personality.
- A niche tool that saves them 45 minutes of spreadsheet hell.
- Or just a jacket so unreasonably cool that strangers stop them on the street to ask, "Where did you get that?"
That is where marketing stops being annoying and starts being magic. The person sharing your stuff isn't thinking, "Ah, yes, let me help this plucky corporation lower its Customer Acquisition Cost." They’re just thinking, "My friend Dave needs to see this immediately."
Riding Shotgun on Attention
That’s how the internet works.
- We weaponize Reels against our friends' attention spans.
- We drop cursed Zillow listings into group chats.
- We send links to our partners with a very subtle “👀” (which roughly translates to "buy this for my birthday or else").
- We aggressively overshare our Spotify Wrapped to prove how obscure our music taste is.
We share things because they made us laugh, helped us, surprised us, or reminded us of Dave. The brand just gets to ride shotgun on the attention, without having to beg for it.
Now, hold on. This does not mean you need to panic and build the next Spotify Wrapped. Please do not blow your entire Q3 marketing budget trying to invent a B2B version of Wordle.
It can be so much simpler:
The Clothing Brand: Notices a weird TikTok trend and instantly drops a tee for it.
The Skincare Brand: Builds a 30-second "routine finder" so people stop guessing which acid will burn their face off.
The Furniture Store: Creates an AR tool proving that, no, that velvet sectional will absolutely not fit through your fourth-floor walk-up.
They are still selling something. They just gave people a reason to care before asking for their credit card.
The Acid Test
So, before you greenlight your next big campaign, feature, or flashy product launch, stop and ask yourself the ultimate acid test:
“Would someone send this to someone else without me bribing them?”
Not because there’s a pathetic 5% referral code. Not because you literally typed "PLEASE RT." Not because they might win a free iPad.
Would they share it just because it’s actually useful, undeniably funny, or simply too good to keep to themselves?
If the answer is yes, you’re golden.
Because you don’t always have to break your back trying to manufacture demand out of thin air.
Sometimes, you just have to look at what people already care about and make something worth sharing.
Yep, until next time! See ya.