Case Study: Orchestrating a Digital Comeback for The Hip Hop Museum
Industry: Cultural Institution
Non-Profit Location: The Bronx, New York City
Website: https://thhm.org
The Challenge: A Pivotal Museum, A Stalled Digital Vision, and a Limited Budget
The Hip Hop Museum represents a groundbreaking effort: the first successful initiative to establish a dedicated museum celebrating the five foundational elements of Hip Hop. Located purposefully in The Bronx, the very birthplace of this global art form, the museum’s mission is to honor its rich history through engaging exhibits, dynamic community engagement, and vibrant cultural events.
However, despite its vital cultural significance and the visionary leadership of Executive Director Rocky Bucano, the museum faced a significant digital hurdle. Their essential website redesign and development project had regrettably stalled. This was largely due to the absence of an experienced WordPress product manager who could bridge the gap between design aspirations, technical implementation, and effective content strategy, all within the constraints of a non-profit budget. While they had the support of Microsoft as a technology partner, the internal expertise to drive the complex WordPress build and content migration was missing.
Our Solution: Expert Leadership to Unstuck and Structure a Cultural Hub
The Hip Hop Museum’s Executive Director, Rocky Bucano, enlisted Digital Strategy Works founder, Tony Zeoli, to step in and provide the critical leadership needed to rescue and complete the stalled website project. Tony brought immediate value as the experienced WordPress product manager the project desperately needed.
Our comprehensive solution involved:
1. Project Leadership & Partner Coordination: Tony Zeoli seamlessly integrated with The Hip Hop Museum’s existing web development partner. He took the reins as the project lead, providing crucial strategic direction and day-to-day oversight. This expert guidance was instrumental in driving the design and development efforts forward, effectively un-stalling the project and bringing it to successful completion.
2. Strategic Content Management & Custom Post Type Implementation: A major challenge was the disorganized nature of existing content and the potential for “cross-pollination” between unrelated topics. We worked collaboratively to define and implement a robust content management procedure. This involved:
- Content Segmentation: Meticulously analyzing and categorizing the museum’s diverse content into logical “buckets” or topic areas.
- Custom Post Type Definition: Architecting and implementing custom post types within WordPress to precisely define and separate content categories (e.g., “Exhibits,” “Events,” “Artist Spotlights,” “Community Programs,” “Collections,” “News”). This ensured that content was structured intelligently, preventing unrelated information from co-mingling and improving both backend management and frontend user experience.
- Mass Content Migration: Overseeing and executing the painstaking migration of hundreds of existing posts from their original, often unstructured, formats into the newly defined custom post types. This monumental effort brought logical order and improved discoverability to the museum’s vast body of information.
3. Video Platform Investigation & Definition: Recognizing the importance of rich media for a cultural institution, we undertook a thorough investigation to define the optimal video platforms that would reliably host and deliver the museum’s streaming video content. This involved assessing various solutions based on factors like scalability, security, delivery performance, and budget considerations, ensuring a robust framework for their multimedia assets.
The Impact: A Structured Digital Home for Hip Hop Culture
Our intervention and leadership transformed The Hip Hop Museum’s digital landscape, providing them with a highly organized, functional, and scalable website that truly embodies their mission:
- Project Completion & Launch: The stalled website redesign was successfully completed and launched, providing the museum with a much-needed modern and engaging online presence.
- Logical Content Architecture: The implementation of custom post types and the meticulous content migration created a highly structured and intuitive content framework, making it easier for visitors to explore the museum’s rich offerings and for the staff to manage content efficiently.
- Enhanced User Experience: By segmenting content and improving navigation, the website now offers a superior user experience, allowing visitors to easily find exhibits, events, and information related to specific Hip Hop elements.
- Scalable Digital Foundation: The well-structured WordPress site provides a robust foundation for future growth, allowing the museum to easily expand its digital content and offerings as it evolves.
- Professional Digital Identity: The new website perfectly positions The Hip Hop Museum as a premier cultural institution, reflecting the respect and dedication it brings to preserving Hip Hop history.
Digital Strategy Works is incredibly proud to have played a pivotal role in bringing The Hip Hop Museum’s digital vision to life, ensuring that this vital cultural institution has a fitting online home to celebrate and share the global phenomenon of Hip Hop.
