Enid Buzz Celebrates 16 Years!

ENID, OK - It was 16 years ago on November 18, 2005, that I purchased the domain name EnidBuzz.com and launched a little blog about Enid. The original idea for Enid Buzz was to randomly post bits of history, old photos and blog about the good old days. I knew other people liked to talk about the '73 flood, the Enid zoo and what our favorite restaurants were from the past. The photo below shows the first version of the logo and website in 2005.

My family came to Enid from Illinois in 1900. I've lived in Enid most of my life and graduated from Enid High in 1981. All of my childhood memories involve Boggy Creek, YMCA baseball, Woolco, Wackers, OTASCO, Richill's, the Bird Sanctuary, downtown pawn shops and more. There couldn't have been a better city to grow up in than Enid, Oklahoma and I hope to help keep Enid the best it can be.

In the beginning I blogged off and on monthly for several years not keeping a regular schedule. Most of my early traffic came from my rankings in Google and word of mouth. As my traffic grew I decided to add more permanent pages and built an online business directory.

Throughout the early years I began to collect a large amount of historic Enid photos and decided I would try to give them a permanent home online. I eventually rebuilt the website and began adding more history and photos. This also increased the number of people wanting to advertise on the website.

As I continued to grow the website I also signed up for accounts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I never really updated them much but had a small loyal following of friends and family.

Everything changed for Enid Buzz in spring of 2012. Due to some changes in the Internet I was forced to look for something more local to do that did not rely on Google rankings. Enid Buzz was the only small company I had that I felt could grow in the local economy.

I've always been lucky with my timing. In mid 2012 I had 300 Likes on the Enid Buzz Facebook page but I knew that Facebook was beginning to explode. I reasoned that if I could capture that audience I could build a brand around the Buzz.

My business plan for Enid Buzz was to bring everything there was to do in Enid into one easy to find location. I knew there were events going on at Gaslight, the Enid Symphony, David Allen Memorial Ballpark, Senior Center, Vance, Government Springs and other venues. There were also hundreds of Facebook pages for just about every organization in town. The problem was that nobody knew about all of these pages or the had the time to visit them all.

I began to monitor all of the local websites and Facebook pages, over 500 in all, for information on upcoming events. At first I had to do a lot of digging on my own. I spent a couple of hours a day just chasing down information. All of this information was then put together on EnidBuzz.com and I would post about it on Facebook. Once word got out and people starting buzzing about the website the information starting flowing in.

The covering of live events and posting about them as they were happening helped make my platform unique to this market. I also began updating about weather events, school closings, earthquakes, business closings, restaurant openings and other happenings. Due to the popularity of Facebook I was able to get the word out quickly about Enid Buzz and reached a large number of Likes within the first year.

Today Enid Buzz has grown to over 39,000 followers on Facebook and we have the most engaged audience in all of NW Oklahoma. We're also growing on the website, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. We launched a free mobile app that now has been installed by over 14,000 users.

Highlights of being Enid Buzz and covering events include the 2017 Presidential Inuaguration, flying with the USAF Thunderbirds in 2016 and getting to interview Garth Brooks about his world tour in 2015. I was honored to be selected as an Honorary Commander at Vance, AFB in 2014. And we've been featured on KFOR's "Great State."

Thanks for being loyal readers of the Buzz.