Fostering Authentic Connections and Empowering Herbalists

After successfully building a group with hundreds of aspiring and experienced herbalists on Facebook, it was time for Yolanda Joy, the owner of Herbal Entrepreneur, to level up her venture. Although social media gave Yolanda a great jumpstart, the biggest limitations were data ownership, user engagement, and content delivery over time.

With Tribe, Yolanda was finally able to create a thriving community under her brand name. Tribe allowed Herbal Entrepreneur to get access to a secure, exclusive, and all-in-one community platform for better learning, member relationships, business networking, and more.

Speaking with Tribe, Yolanda Joy, Founder of Herbal Entrepreneur, explains how Tribe helped boost user engagement and better monetization avenues through a customized community.

Herbal Entrepreneur’s story

A few years ago, when Yolanda Joy wanted to start her own herbal business, she felt completely at sea. The internet flooded her with resources on running an herbal business, but often this information was grossly inaccurate, outdated, or misleading. “I knew there were experienced entrepreneurs out there who had walked my path, but there wasn’t one common forum where herbalists could meet, connect, exchange information, and build relationships,” begins Yolanda Joy, Founder of Herbal Entrepreneur.

At this point, Yolanda started an online group for like-minded individuals and organizations in the herbal industry. However, in no time, the group expanded from zero to 1000s of members as Yolanda had tapped into a niche yet underserved market.

“As our community grew, I wanted an alternative to Facebook Groups and was on the lookout for an application that was exclusive and free from ads or censorship. I was actively following Tribe and other community platforms in the market. When it was time to shift to an independent community platform, Tribe was our first choice for its powerful features, price point, and scalability,” said Yolanda.

"Tribe was our first choice for its powerful features, price point, and scalability."

Key features that stood out for Herbal Entrepreneur

Here are some key Tribe features and functions that enabled Herbal Entrepreneur to build a successful community.

Robust content structure
Tribe’s unique value proposition is the customizability. Yolanda was able to customize Tribe Spaces to foster different types of discussions based on the category of community member.

“For example, Tribe Spaces allows us to create and maintain separate discussion groups. Categorizing content on the community helps us keep content fatigue at bay, bring the right information to the right member, and boost user participation,” explains Yolanda.

Better connections and communications
Content generation and communication options are quite easy with Tribe. Community owners or admins can create polls, call to action, guides, upload videos and links, comment, upvote, and so much more.

But according to Yolanda, her favorite Tribe feature is private messaging that allows admins to engage in 1-1 messaging with members for better outreach and privacy.

Improved monetization
Although Herbal Entrepreneur was a monetized group before moving into Tribe, certain Tribe features helped Yolanda improve her efforts to offer exclusive, premium content.

"Through Tribe, we were able to better manage our activity feed and notifications for paid guest webinars and meetups and create an engaged and authentic community."

Today, around 100 members of the Herbal Entrepreneur community have opted for monthly paid subscriptions.

Interaction with the Tribe team

According to Yolanda, the service and partnership offered by Tribe went beyond just technology implementation. The Tribe team has always been easy to approach and receptive to feedback.

“I am part of the beta feedback space on Tribe, and the team promptly addressed every feature improvement suggestion made on Tribe’s community, Campfire. I was deeply impressed by Tribe’s proactiveness and commitment to continuous platform improvement,” says Yolanda.

"I was deeply impressed by Tribe’s proactiveness and commitment to continuous platform improvement"

The results

In the end, Tribe not only helped Herbal Entrepreneur create the foundation for well-rounded communication but also enhanced brand value and member loyalty.

Currently, the Herbal Entrepreneur community is 1000 members strong and actively growing.

"Many members of our community today are our brand ambassadors, and it’s all because of the improved and genuine community engagement we were able to drive with Tribe!"

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