MotorTrend: Roadkill
Roadkill is a popular Youtube channel created by The Enthusiast Network, the same folks who bring you Motortrend, HOT ROD Magazine, and more. On Roadkill, viewers can join HOT ROD’s David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan as they take old project cars and take them out for a wild adventure. The Roadkill site is more than just a repository for their videos; it is also a thriving community, called RK Nation, where automobile enthusiasts can talk about the show, talk shop, and connect with other people who love Roadkill as much as they do.
Roadkill
What Roadkill wanted for their first official site was highly complex, and luckily, WebDevStudios loves a challenge! We developed a custom theme for the site with a variety of intricate customizations that would best serve the Roadkill audience. Powered by WordPress and BuddyPress, the Roadkill site offers their audience a community and social network, allowing Roadkill fans to interact with each other.
Note: The website design and development work completed by WebDevStudios for this client may no longer be available and could have been altered since its creation.
Branded Landing Pages
WebDevStudios created custom post types in WordPress to create branded landing pages for 24 Hours of Lemons and Dirt Every Day, two offshoot shows of the Roadkill brand. We made it possible for the Roadkill team to powerfully create content on these specific pages by allowing them to attach other types of content to their brand pages, including photo and video galleries and related articles.
BuddyPress Powered Community
Roadkill Nation was created in BuddyPress with a highly customized design that ensures the community page matches the overall Roadkill site aesthetics. Roadkill Nation is an extremely versatile social community that allows users to create a profile, join groups, add friends, and stay up-to-date with a comprehensive member activity feed. Additionally, we created a Roadkill Nation members directory that users can utilize for finding and connecting with other Roadkill fans.
Like many social community sites, the member profiles give users the opportunity to express themselves by letting them upload an avatar, cover photo, and personal bio, as well as share their site activity, groups, and galleries of their own media.
Video Repository
Making an attractive and easily manageable video gallery was a crucial element of creating the perfect Roadkill site. WebDevStudios integrated Kaltura, a third party video service that allows the Roadkill team to brand their videos and track the analytics of their views to create a primary landing page for all of their different shows.
The primary video landing page pulls in the latest videos where users can click through to view older episodes and share the ones that they like best on social media.
Complex Social Media Integration
An active social media presence is a crucial way to build a brand and cultivate a marketing strategy, and we helped Roadkill elevate their community presence by creating a complex social media integration on their website, particularly on their Media Wall. Now, all posts on Twitter and Instagram tagged with #BecauseRoadkill are pulled onto their page, allowing their users to take community involvement to the next level of connection.
