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Dynamic Content

Set Up Your Site to Update Content Automatically

The best-maintained sites aren’t always the ones with the most active editors — they’re the ones that pull fresh content automatically. This training covers the blocks that make that possible: news feeds, social feeds, and course and academic content that stays current without constant manual attention.

Watch the videos below in order. When you’re ready, the quiz at the bottom of this page will unlock your Dynamic Content feature pack.

Estimated time to complete: ~8 minutes of video, plus practice time.

Before you start: This training assumes you’re comfortable with the basics of WordPress and the block editor. If you haven’t completed the Base training, we recommend starting there.

The Case for Dynamic Content

Completion Time: 1.5 min

Every website has a freshness problem. This video makes the case for dynamic content — and introduces the blocks that can keep your site current without adding to your daily workload.

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Looking for help keeping your existing pages current? The content audit tools covered in the Professional/Advanced training are a good complement to the dynamic blocks covered here. See Content Audit Tools for more.

News Feeds: Choosing the Right One

Completion Time: 2.5 min

There are three blocks for displaying news content automatically on the NC State Web Platform — and they serve meaningfully different purposes. This video covers which to reach for depending on where your content is coming from.

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Try it yourself: For each of the following site types, identify which news feed block fits best and write one or two sentences explaining why:

  1. A college news site that publishes its own stories and wants to surface them on department subpages
  2. A department page that doesn’t publish its own news but wants to keep visitors informed with relevant campus stories
  3. A research center that wants to surface headlines from a national professional association’s website

Write your answers before moving on.

For configuration details on each block:

Note: The Posts Feed block is available on Pro and Premium tier sites. Free tier sites should use the Newswire Feed block to display university news content.

Social Feeds

Completion Time: 2 min

If your unit has an active Instagram presence, you can surface that content directly on your WordPress site. This video covers two ways to do it — one compact and quick to set up, one more flexible — and points you to the configuration documentation for each.

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Both approaches require the Smash Balloon plugin to be installed on your site. If it isn’t already, submit a request at go.ncsu.edu/ucomm-dev-request.

For configuration steps:

Course and Academic Content

Completion Time: 2 min

For faculty sites, department pages, and academic program pages, keeping course listings current is a perennial challenge. This video covers the Course Catalog block — which connects directly to catalog.ncsu.edu — and when a Resources custom post type is the better fit for content that doesn’t live in the university catalog.

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For configuration details and setup steps:

Training Feedback

As we launch our on demand trainings, we are looking for all feedback — positive, negative and everything in between. Please let us know what you like and how we can improve.

Submit Feedback

Ready to Unlock This Feature Pack?

You’ve covered the full dynamic content toolkit — from choosing the right news feed for your situation, to surfacing your Instagram content, to keeping course listings current without duplicating work that’s already being done in the university catalog.

When you’re confident in the material, take the quiz below. A passing score of 80% or higher will automatically unlock the Dynamic Content feature pack on your site.

Complete the Dynamic Content Training Quiz

What’s next? If you’re also interested in collecting leads, managing events, or building more visually rich pages, explore our other trainings:

  • Professional/Advanced — Building Pages That Work
  • Storytelling — Creating News Content and Telling NC State’s Story
  • Engagement and Events — Lead Generation, Events, and RSVP Management