If I play my cards right you’ll tell your friends about this post.

In social media, the content you determine share-worthy is given your virtual seal of approval, making your friends more likely to read it and subsequently share it themselves.

This word of mouth can be a powerful way to have your fans, followers, or whoever deems your content valuable to do your advertising for you, allowing you to reach new markets that you may not have been able to with traditional methods.

Of course, it’s easier said than done. Here are three things to focus on to help your chances of social success.

1. Start with building trust

Trust is the key factor in word of mouth marketing. People would rather have you admit to an honest mistake than to spin a slick lie. Dodging and denying customer feedback won’t make it not exist. The best organizations will admit to shortcomings and show how they are making steps to fix them. (The amazing turnaround of Domino’s pizza comes to mind.)

In the era of transparency, building this trust is becoming increasingly significant, and significantly more difficult. Customers are losing confidence in their ability to trust us. In fact, 76% of consumers believe that companies don’t tell the truth in advertising. So instead of talking at your customers, consider talking (and listening!) with them.

Social media provides the platform for organizations to build this trust. Providing the space for conversation gives consumers the opportunity to talk.

Consumers are more than twice as likely to trust people they know in blogs, on Facebook, and on Twitter than they are to trust brands in the same spaces. Nielsen revealed that in a study of 25,000 citizens from 50 countries, the most trusted ads were recommendations from consumers (90%) followed by online consumers’ opinions (70%).

So for brands, the challenge is to step out of the ivory tower and into the streets and present themselves not as logos, but as the humans behind those logos.

2. Focus on the product

If you haven’t invested in developing your content, people will be able to tell. And they will likely tell anyone who will listen (online or off).

This may be especially relevant as younger generations are letting what people say about brands guide their purchasing decisions. According to eMarketer, digital natives (people between the ages of 18 to 34) are using and creating online content to recommend or dissuade friends, family and even site visitors from a brand or product. They also found that these consumers will rely on anonymous user-generated content 51% of the time. So if someone doesn’t like your product and freely shares that, these consumers will take notice.

Invest in your product and share it with your consumers. Consider taking a page out of, House Party‘s book: The website basically helps people throw parties by giving them a package of free items from various sponsoring brands. Party-goers get exclusive access to try and share products with their friends. All House Party wants is some feedback to let the brands know how everyone liked (or disliked) their product(s).

Sure, there’s risk that it might backfire, but that risk exists whether you want to admit it or not. Being open to (and acting on) customer feedback is not only key to building a better product, but it’s also key to building trust.

3. Actually ask people what they think

Simply, asking for recommendations can be advantageous for your brand but make sure to say your please and thank-yous.

Social platforms have provided companies the opportunity to operate an ongoing focus group with their customers. By involving your audience with your product development, you can convert potential users into advocates.

Recommendations are the holy grail of marketing. Empowered customers who feel listened to are more likely to start a snowball effect of awareness for your organization. It takes courage to ask people what they think, and it takes humility to act on it.

Take for example an agency that sent a toothbrush to 30,000 participants to try it and if they liked it, they were encouraged to share coupons with friends. After tracking the coupons, the agency claimed that the 30,000 participants each told an average of 9.14 people each who then told an average of 4.14 people, yielding a total of 1,449,480 people now knowing about the toothbrush. Now that’s a lot of chatter!

If you want to tap into the power of word of mouth, you have to first set the table – and then invite your audience to sit there with you, and be willing to sincerely listen to anything they may say. It will make for a better product. It’ll make for better relationships. And it’ll help get the word out in a positive way.

This post originally appeared on Engage.