What is the difference between community-led growth and influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing buys the attention of an audience someone else built. Community-led growth grows your brand through the people who already use it, in the group they already belong to. The first is a spend that stops when you stop paying; the second is something you build that stays.

Concretely they differ on three points. Direction: influencer marketing goes from one sender to many receivers, community-led growth goes around, from member to member. Basis: an influencer is chosen on reach, a community member is there because they belong. Time: an influencer post peaks and disappears, a community remembers what was worn last season.

Sunday Squad chooses the second and uses the mechanics of the first. A squad of 10 or 25 sportfluencers posts at the same time, so there is a peak. But the sportfluencers aren't senders from outside; they're members of the community they post in: the club, the peloton, the Strava feed. With Sunday Squad Ambassadors they stay that in rounds, and then the community does the rest: the runner who saw your gel with a clubmate for three rounds buys it without anyone asking them to. What community-led growth is, and the difference between creator marketing and influencer marketing.