Unlocking Creative Content Management in WordPress

BobWP:
Well, we’re here with our second episode of Content Sparks, but our first official episode of Content Sparks with Derek Hanson talking about content management. And yes, Derek is here. So I’m not going to talk away and take up all the time. How you doing, Derek?

Derek Hanson:
I’m doing great today, Bob. How are you?

BobWP:
I’m doing good. Good. So Derek, I think what would be great is I know you’ve been on one or two shows, but to give us an idea of what you do and that experience, yeah, in a way.

Derek Hanson:
Can be a long story, like sort of where I came from to where I am now. So what I do now is project management for website projects with the special projects team at Automatic, which as a large component of going through content architecture and content management within WordPress specifically. Obviously everything’s going to be about WordPress. But going back all the way to grad school was where I was first introduced to WordPress and I saw the potential for it to be the best path forward for content management. So I started in grad school teaching communication and writing courses. And every semester in one of the courses I taught, students had to deliver a portfolio. And traditionally it was a collection of documents. Like way, way back it was a collection of printed documents and it would be like a binder and you’d take home stacks of binders and you’d give feedback by hand on all those documents and multiply that by however many classes you’re speaking, you could have dozens of these three ring binders and move into the next wave. Which is where I was, you know, kind of started off teaching.

That was all moving digital, but it was still very document driven. Either Word docs, PDFs, Google Docs was really starting to take off a little bit more. And our university where I was at Iowa State, they had an initiative to introduce the E portfolio, the electronic portfolio. And it was spearheaded by the writing program administrator and some grad students. And they thought, well this should all be web based. So they were much more into like the digital humanities and digital pedagogy. And they built for the department a platform on WordPress. It was all self hosted and it was all open source, which is why they chose WordPress. They wanted it to be very grounded in the ethos of the humanities. And they put out a call, like to instructors like, who wanted to pilot, you know, this thing called WordPress for their ePortfolios. And I was like, yeah, I want to do it. So get in there right away. And immediately I just saw the potential, like moving all of your work from a Google Drive or your folders, your papers specifically for writing courses, moving that all to a web based approach using WordPress just kind of unlocked a new mindset for me about how you could, again, we’re talking about content management.

How can, how you can manage your content because it’s eventually going to land on the Internet. Like if you’re doing writing and you’re thinking about an audience you’re going to reach, it’s going to be published in such a way that somebody can consume it. And the way that happens is through a website, whether that’s a blog or newsletter, you know, whatever. But WordPress being the best tool to deliver written content, but then in a multimodal format, because you could bring in imagery, you can bring in video, you can really enhance the experience and custom tailor it to your personal aesthetic.

So it really unlocked a whole potential of creativity for students, which again I just got really excited about. So that was like the first kind of like wave of getting into understanding what you can do to organize your content. Because at the end, and that’s what I spend a lot of time with the students on, is not just like, here’s your paper, it’s how you present it in a narrative journey to when somebody comes to your portfolio, what’s the first thing that they should do? How are they going to engage with your content? Because you can’t just throw your papers in there, kind of like you do in a binder. But it has some structure to it. Here’s my table of contents, you know, maybe cover page. And then each section is like built out in chapters, but it’s a very linear journey. So how do you present a non linear journey for your content?

And that’s where WordPress really unlocked the potential for students. And where I spent probably most of my time teaching is like, here’s how you set up navigation, here’s where you put your posts, here’s how you use categories and tags and taxonomies to connect everything together. Because that’s what really facilitates a nonlinear journey, is creating those hyperlinked connections. And that was what, like a lot of the early research for Writing programs and like moving to digital writing is to see like how you can link in between content. So to like take that at scale and make it much bigger. So like hey, here’s now your space on your WordPress site, your ePortfolio and you got to connect all the dots now like it’s not up to the reader to come and just figure it out. You have to create the pathways for people to experience your content in a way that you desire.

BobWP:
Yeah, that’s interesting because I think back when I started using it and I had HTML website that I put together for our business because we came out of print and it was a pretty horrifying site because I wasn’t really skilled at it. So I did it anyway because I felt I needed to be online. But when I found WordPress right away, what fascinated me was being able to write content on there, like yeah, articles. And until I got into it, then I started understanding more on how you build that architecture. And Derek has helped significantly with my jumbled content architecture, I guess they called. I mean there’s things I haven’t thought about. I. You look at categories and tags, but how certain things can affect something. I mean, you think, oh, I’m just going to do this. Well, no, Derek would sent me back. You want to do it this way because it makes the most sense the way WordPress is built and how many people go into it thinking it’s a content management system because it kind of manages content, but they don’t really know the wheels behind it, how important the actual architecture is, than just always just saying, oh, I’ll decide this category or this tag.

Derek Hanson:
Yeah, you have to go in with some planning. Right. But also the Coolest thing about WordPress is it’s flexible and adaptable and it’s very organic. So it can shift and change over time. Just because you assign a whole bunch of categories that maybe you didn’t have pre planning in the beginning doesn’t mean you can’t reassign new sets of categories to stuff. So there’s endless opportunity to adapt your site to whatever you’re doing at the time. Right. And I think that’s what you’ve discovered with do the Woo is that the first iteration was one thing. Like what one show maybe was the first iteration. And yeah, and we’re launching, you know, along with a few other creators, content sparks like this is another new show on top of lots of other new shows. So you’ve grown into a massive network. What is the best way to present all that now for People to consume. And I think that’s what you’ve been working through over the past two years now.

BobWP:
And it’s really fascinating to me because like you said, it makes it so flexible. And I know there’s been times where I was really overthinking it because it’s not that it’s simpler, but you understand it more and you have more experience having done this, that it’s probably runs through your head in a different way than it would, you know, just the normal blogger.

Derek Hanson:
Yeah, Like a typical individual who’s just going to start, like you said, a blog. You know, their first and foremost activity that they want to do is just let me publish this post. Right. Like, that’s zero to a hundred. They just want to go from idea to, you know, publication. If they’re starting from scratch, that’s fine because you need to build up your content over time. Like in your examples. Now that you have a whole bunch of shows, like, how do you sort through the complexity of all that? Because not just individual shows, but it’s multiple hosts involved with those shows and multiple topics and multiple formats of content. So the more you build onto the platform, the more you have to step back and reevaluate. Like, are we presenting this in the most clear and possible way to our end users? But then also, like, to yourself, like, that’s the other side.

And really, probably what is the most interesting and fascinating to me is I really want to unlock the creativity of the owner of a site so that they understand what they’re doing and that they can easily manage what they’re doing. And what I’m thinking about, like, with you, a lot of times, like, I’m still only presenting one way to do it. You know, with WordPress, there’s a thousand ways to do something. So you could pocket any idea I throw at you too, and be like, well, I know you think that’s a good idea, Derek, but I don’t like it. That’s what makes it fun and makes, you know, it’s a challenge. And it’s like I said, where I came from first being introduced to WordPress was in a space of teaching and in a role of education. And that’s where I still feel I provide the most impact and value to WordPress as a whole. Is that the conversations I’m having with you are not just like telling you how to do something, but stepping back and thinking through what the goal is that you want to do and turning that into a bit of a learning experience. So trying to teach a little bit more about what I’m thinking about and how you can approach your site specifically, but then just in general, like, how are you wanting to accomplish your goal and what do you want your users to understand from what you’re trying to do as well? So kind of taking that learning side of things and keeping that a part of my. A part of my myself and my identity, because it’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing is teaching. So just kind of like shifting like where that energy goes to in teaching folks with. Through WordPress.

BobWP:
Yeah. So I. I feel very well equipped to do this show with you in the sense that I understand a lot more.

Derek Hanson:
Yeah. Especially if you have that multimodal approach. Right. Like you have written audio and now you’re bringing in video to all the stuff you do. So there’s no mode of communication that you’re leaving out where, you know, a content channel that is like specifically a newsletter that makes the thought process much more streamlined. You can approach it in a very focused way. But as soon as you start stacking different types of communication on and then introducing other things, like maybe you started off as just a blog, but now you’re introducing a paid portion of it. So that’s the cool thing about WordPress. It scales. So it does a lot of things very well. Some other tools will do one thing, like, really well, but it doesn’t let you scale to do, you know, a lot of different things and let you like, carry out a vision as especially people like in your shoes, in your space, like the content and the creativity and the entrepreneurial mindset. Like you’re probably always thinking of like the next cool thing or the next new thing and the next idea. And WordPress specifically unlocks that creativity in such a way that you can kind of go with the ebb and flow of what you’re thinking in different times. That’s one of the cool things about your site is the changelog. To me, that’s maybe there’s a whole content episode about the changelog.

BobWP:
Yeah, I know.

Derek Hanson:
And how everybody should have one. Like, that’s such a cool idea because it really shows the evolution of your site and where it started from and where it is now and that people can track through the journey. Here’s another idea. Maybe you’ll like expand that and go through the Internet archive and now bring images into that and make that experience multimodal.

BobWP:
Yeah. It was strange because, and I’ve mentioned it in a couple posts I’ve written about it, and I would look at change logs for products and stuff like that. I think, well, that’s kind of cool. Have the bugs and they have the fixes and everything. And it just occurred to me, I thought, wow, what if you did that to the site? Because it’s either something new, it’s something you fixed, it’s some bug. And I listed some bugs in there. And I’ve also got a little bit on the comical side with some of the bugs. You know, like when the early one was, I discovered I didn’t like being on the podcast myself as a host, I needed more hosts. But it does and I often go back to it because I’ll think now when did this host come on? When did this show start? And it’s become something very easy for me to just slide through and think, oh wow, I didn’t realize it was that long ago. So yeah, it’s a fun thing to do for sure. And it does give you, like you said, that history of how it’s evolved.

Derek Hanson:
Yeah, it’s a good personal documentation of the journey. Right. But then making it open and public and, and like you said, you already go and reference it yourself. It’s not even just the end user or the audience that’s benefiting from it. Like, like, hey, I kind of started this for myself as well and I.

BobWP:
Wonder with content management, give you an example. So you know, I’m always looking at, okay, I want to keep as much of my content on the site versus always putting it out and putting articles or long articles on X or whatever you call them. So over time when I’m going through some of that stuff on social, I’m just like start going into a daze because I’m just doom scrolling and things get lost and stuff. So I recently I started a daily little post I do and it kind of took me back to the days of journaling and the early days of blogging where you could just put as a simple thought down, I thought, well, I’ll do that instead of putting it somewhere. But also at the same time I’ve had to really start looking at what I’m doing on social and some of it I’m cutting back quite a bit on because I’m not seeing the value there. There’s just things that aren’t fitting right for me. And I started a newsletter on LinkedIn because I had the opportunity to figure out a good way to bring the content from each episode a little bit more elaborated, but not, you know, that lives there or that little newsletter, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be on my site. So I guess in a long about way I’m asking, it’s when you’re doing your site and depending, of course, if you’re just doing a simple blog and you want to share with friends. But most sites are looking to get out market themselves. That content management part, it seems like you’ve got to reach out and really make some heavy decisions of what’s going to be showing up where.

Derek Hanson:
Right. That’s one of the greatest advantages of WordPress and open source is that all of your content that you put on your site and the comments and the engagement, all of that stuff that’s yours, you get to take that with you, whether it’s to a different hosting provider or just zip it down and keep it locally like it’s yours. Something like LinkedIn, Facebook, X, whatever social platform. That’s what is considered the walled garden is the term, right? Where you’re essentially using that platform to send out, you know, your content and your ideas, whether it’s, you know, text or images or video, you know, whatever, everything takes place within that ecosystem. So then when you’re talking about a content like plan and strategy, it’s thinking about internally with yourself, like this particular message, who am I trying to reach and where do I want that conversation to take place? And do like you were kind of hinting, like, I don’t think this one needs to be on my site. And that might be the case. And that’s why like just a LinkedIn newsletter makes a lot of sense. But I’m of the mantra like, whatever you do, always try to bring people back to your site, like, you know, hopefully, or if they’re on your site, try to keep them there. But it’s really hard because people like to spend their time in a specific place because that’s where they develop relationships or have conversations or learn about new things. But I still think the essence of your work and your content staying within with you within your site will always make the most sense to me. I don’t see any world where it makes sense to like, hey, I’m going to post all of my videos on Facebook, or all of my newsletter content is on LinkedIn. Like those are good strategies for some part of what you do, but it can’t be everything.

BobWP:
I’ve thought of different ways and I’m kind of in the middle of doing it again as far as ways to reach out to people, to get people to give those ideas. And you know, you put it on social and it gets lost in the void sometimes.

Derek Hanson:
Yeah, the feedback loop is its own Content strategy, right? Yeah. I mean, that’s the other great thing about WordPress is, given time and space, anything is possible. Right. There’s really not anything that you, guess, you say it can’t do. It just takes time and space and. Yeah. Something to accommodate that next idea. But what I think is also great is like, hey, the tool probably already exists, and it’s just a matter of, like, going and finding it. Or oftentimes it’s like, hey, you can actually already do this on your site. It’s just thinking about it in this way. And in fact. So, like, last story before we wrap up. So when I was teaching grad school and teaching communication and writing classes, we had a collection of textbooks that we could choose from. And one of the ones that I chose was titled Everything is An Argument. And I’m like, exactly. Everything is from somebody’s Facebook post to a magazine cover to, like, you can get really down into details to, like a can of, you know, soda or pop.

BobWP:
Yeah, exactly.

Derek Hanson:
It is an argument from a rhetorical perspective. And I think that’s why I love what I do so much, and I love WordPress so much, is that I get to sort of enact and use my, like, rhetorical and theoretical muscles a bunch. It’s not just physically, let’s make this website do a thing. It’s like, no, let’s step back and think about why we’re doing it and what we’re doing it for. And not just like, okay, you want to accomplish this goal here. Let’s think about. Let’s step back and think about why and. And long, roundabout way to say, like, everybody’s a content creator. Like, you’re going out and you’re posting something. Like, you have created content, so now what do you do with it? Even, like, family who’s, like, posting, you know, a photo of their vacation, you know, with their family. Like, in the end, like, where do you want that content to live? What happens if Instagram goes down tomorrow or Facebook goes down tomorrow? What have you done to capture that content from your life in a meaningful way that, you know, you can sustain it and maintain it?

BobWP:
Yeah. And that’s interesting for a final thought, because I don’t think many people think of that. They’ll think, okay, you know, I’m putting it on, like you said, for example, pictures on Instagram, but within your own domain of your home and everything. Maybe you have them on your phone and you have them on your computer, and you can go through and look at them and search for them. But is there something better that you could also be doing at home or you can archive it some way that will be easier to use.

Derek Hanson:
I know, I know people that keep their accounts for something because they’re like, well, I posted all these things there and I want to be able to see them still, but they’re not actively engaged in the platform. Like, it’s like, well, move that stuff somewhere else.

BobWP:
Yeah, exactly. Perfect way to end the show. And yeah, looking forward to these conversations. And Derek will be doing this once a month. And who knows, maybe Derek will get so excited about it, we’ll throw in extra shows someday. But I’m not going to push him on that quite yet.

Derek Hanson:
I’m not into the daily or weekly grind yet.

BobWP:
Yeah, exactly. For sure. So thanks again, Derek.

Derek Hanson:
Yeah, I’m glad to be here. I’m excited.

BobWP:
All right, take care.

Derek Hanson:
Yep, you too. Thanks, Bob.