One day, Larry Harvey and Jerry James dragged a wooden man onto Baker Beach in San Francisco, and burned it amongst a small group of friends. Burning Man was born.What started out as a small gathering turned into an annual gathering, and global community bringing together 70,000 people every year at the annual Burning Man festival, and thousands more at events hosted in dozens of countries around the world.It’s incredible to see how Burning Man could spread so far around the world and reach so many people with such a small team. Of course, it’s only possible because of the hundreds of regional organizers who took on the core values of Burning Man and built their own events.This is how you scale community. You distribute control to your community members.

Community-Driven Marketing: Distributed Control

The concept of distributing control to local community organizers certainly isn’t new. It’s been used by religions and governments for thousands of years. And in the digital age, this format has fueled well-known communities like TedX, Startup Grind, Creative Mornings, Daybreaker, Startup Weekend, and The Dinner Party.Now, the same playbook that has worked for communities is being successfully implemented by brands.Duolingo, the language learning app that offers 68 different language courses across 28 languages and has about 200 million registered users, is a great example. Today, Duolingo hosts 14,000 events every year with a community team of just 3 people. They do it by distributing control to their community members, who self organize events and experiences that remain true to Duolingo’s brand and values.By democratizing your brand and distributing power to your most loyal community members, you unlock incredible growth potential, for you are no longer limited by the bandwidth of your core team. You can spark a movement and build in-person brand engagement at scale.These programs are often called customer-to-customer marketing programs. They’ve become a critical part of community strategies at companies like Salesforce, Reddit, Asana, Atlassian, Facebook, and Docker. More of these programs are launching every day.

Customer-to-Customer Marketing: The Solution for Today

It’s been universal knowledge in business that the most powerful form of marketing is word-of-mouth. With in-person community programs, these companies are building valuable trust networks, and spending much less than they do on other channels to reach the same amount of people.There’s never been a better time for brands to focus on building community. People are seeking connection and belonging at increasing rates as loneliness is on the rise. And community is absolutely critical for human health and happiness. A recent paper showed that people who focused on social interaction had a more positive effect on life satisfaction than losing weight, and exercising more. Research consistently shows conversing in person makes us happier—we speak longer, and laugh more.Social media was meant to connect the world, but somehow left us feeling more isolated and alone. As Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian recently said, “We’ve hit peak social. What people seem to be clamoring for more and more now is community.”That’s why brands have an unprecedented opportunity to build real meaningful community that gives people a true sense of belonging, and drives meaningful impact for the business.The value of community to a business is so much more than just loyalty. Loyalty and retention are the table stakes. The real opportunity is in empowering those loyal customers to take action and contribute to the brand mission. They can do that by creating gatherings, online and in-person.A number of new platforms have cropped up to help businesses run these programs at scale, including Bevy, the platform CMX uses to run our distributed events program.The power of these tools are that you can give your local chapter leaders control over their own events, while keeping your brand consistent. Perhaps most importantly, you can access, organize, and control permissions for attendee data, make sure it’s secure, and give your organizations insights into how your community members are engaging with your brand and with each other around the world.

How To Launch a Customer-to-Customer Marketing Community For Your Business

Customer-to-customer marketing generally require a few key assets:

1. Ready and motivated community members who are excited to host local events
2. A platform for your members to launch and grow their local communities
3. An application and interview process for vetting hosts to ensure value alignment
4. A playbook and onboarding process to guide your hosts on how to successfully run events
5. A dedicated community team focused on activating and supporting local hosts

Most brands start with just a few chapters to get the model right, and then scale up from there. It’s important to figure out the right recommended format for your events. Try fireside chats, presentations, roundtables, breakfasts, or any format that aligns with the goals and culture of your community.Brands will often provide local hosts with a basic package of swag for their events. Hosts are also rewarded with perks, access to unique experiences, or early access to feature. Many brands also organize large gatherings to bring hosts together, like Google's GDG Summit or the annual Facebook Communities Summit.The motivation for these volunteers is rarely monetary, if ever. Instead, they love the brand and are craving an opportunity to learn and connect with others. They want real community.I expect we’re going to see customer-to-customer marketing programs become a staple amongst community teams, which has me really excited. These programs are clear, measurable examples of the true value of community.--Photo by Samantha Gades on Unsplash