Home Communicating With Members

Communicating With Members

Newsfeed, announcements, notifications, search, and chat.
By Faizan Shaikh
• 5 articles

The newsfeed & moderating posts

Status: Available How the community newsfeed works, and the moderation powers you have over posts and comments. The newsfeed is where your members post, react, run polls, and talk to each other. It is the main social surface, and it is free for every signed-up member to use. This guide covers how the feed behaves and what you, as an admin or moderator, can do to keep it in good shape. What members can post A post can include: - Text (up to 5,000 characters). - Media (images and other attachments). - A poll with 2 to 6 options. Members vote inline. - Mentions: type @ to tag another member, which notifies them. Members can comment on any post (comments are up to 2,000 characters), and they can save posts to come back to later. Reactions Instead of a single "like", posts and comments support five reaction types. A member picks one reaction per item. Reaction counts are precomputed and roll up shortly after the reaction happens rather than the instant it lands, so a brief lag in the number is normal. How the feed is ordered The feed has three ordering tabs members can switch between: | Tab | What it shows | |---|---| | Newest | The most recently created posts first. | | Recent activity | Posts that have had recent comments or activity bubble up, so active conversations stay near the top. | | Most popular | Posts ranked by engagement. | Pinning a post You can pin (sticky) a post so it stays at the top of the feed regardless of the ordering tab. This is useful for a welcome post, community rules, or anything you want every member to see first. Pinning is admin-only. Regular members can't pin or unpin posts. Moderating posts and comments As an admin or moderator you can remove any post or comment in the feed, not just your own. Use this for content that breaks your community guidelines. When you remove a comment, the member who wrote it is notified that it was removed by moderation, so removal isn't silent. Admins and moderators are not subject to the usual content-access checks, so you can see and act on content across the community. Related - Announcements: the 3 ways to reach members - How notifications work - Member roles explained

Last updated on Jun 26, 2026

Send announcements to your members

Status: Available Post an announcement that reaches every member in your community through their alerts. An announcement is a message you send to everyone in your community. It lands in each member's alerts area, so it's the right tool for a deliberate, community-wide notice like a policy change, an event reminder, or a heads-up about maintenance. Post an announcement You create announcements in Announcements (/admin/content/announcement): 1. Open Announcements (/admin/content/announcement). 2. Click Create Item. 3. Write your announcement. 4. Save. How members see it The announcement appears in every member's alerts. Members can mark all as read, but there's no per-item dismiss, so they clear the whole set at once. An announcement goes to everyone at once and stays until a member clears it. There's no scheduling, no way to target a subset of members, and no expiry date. A lighter option: automatic content cards You don't always need a full announcement. When you publish a blog post, course, group, event, product, or plan, TribeCrafter automatically posts a card about it to the newsfeed. Members scrolling the feed see your new content without you announcing it. So for "we just added X," publishing the content already gives it visibility. Which to use | You want to... | Use | |---|---| | Put a message in every member's alerts | An announcement | | Let members know about new content you published | Nothing. The automatic content card handles it | | Show a short, timely line across the top of the screen | The announcement banner | | Show a promo card in the newsfeed sidebar | The promo widget | Related - The announcement banner - The promo widget - How notifications work - The newsfeed & moderating posts

Last updated on Jul 28, 2026

How notifications work

Status: Available What triggers a notification for your members, where they show up, and what members can and can't control. Notifications keep members in the loop on what's happening around them. As an admin it helps to know what generates one, so you can answer member questions and set expectations. What triggers a notification Member activity around someone fires a notification to that person. The main triggers include: - Being mentioned in a post or comment - A reply to their post or comment - A reaction on their post or comment - A connection request, and when their connection request is accepted - A new follow - Being added to a group - A course update for a course they're in - Event reminders for events they're attending - Moderation actions on their content (for example, a comment of theirs being removed) This isn't an exhaustive list of every internal trigger, but it covers what members notice day to day. Where notifications appear Notifications show up in-app, in real time. A member sees them arrive while they're using the community, without needing to refresh. Reaction notifications are grouped together over a short window rather than firing one-by-one, so a flurry of reactions won't flood someone's notifications. Most other types arrive individually. Email Some important notifications may also be sent by email, and members can manage their own notification preferences. Email is not guaranteed for every type of notification. Treat in-app as the reliable channel, and email as a possible extra for the more significant events. What members can't turn off Members control most of their preferences, with one exception: event reminders can't be switched off. If a member is attending an event, they'll get the reminder regardless of their other settings. Related - The newsfeed & moderating posts - Direct messages (chat) - Connections, follows & blocking

Last updated on Jun 26, 2026