Many social researches have demonstrated that when it comes to individual and social change an important tool is to understand the environmental, educational and social context. Community based social marketing uses this idea to implement its activities and achieve its goals.

The relevance of community not only understood as individuals but also as organizations, is basic to foster behavior change. Community based social marketing intends to raise people consciousness and encourage the community to change their way of living in a wide variety of planning issues such as sustainable behavior, ecology or public transportation use.

 It starts by identifying a barrier, promoting an idea to change this barrier - which later will become a plan- and applying this strategy to the problem. After this, it is very important to verify and evaluate the effectiveness of the plan.

In order to make this strategy works, community based social marketers must emphasize personal contact, the use of proven tools and the removal of the identified barriers.

The main difference between traditional marketing and community based social marketing is that it doesn´t just provide information but works with it in the community in a more pragmatic way.

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Jennifer Domizi is a marketing consultant of Simple Social Marketing , a social media marketing agency that focuses on providing marketing tools to leverage companies' brand awareness in social media channels.