A letter from our team – 2022 recapped.
2022 flew by and it was a great one.
Over the past year we welcomed two new full time team members to our staff – one a previous intern, which was so exciting for us! We also added four new freelance content creators (again, one of which was a previous intern) and had the pleasure of working with 5 interns who taught us a lot about the next generation.
StepOutBuffalo.com welcomed over 3.5 million users in 2022 – all looking for ways to experience Buffalo and Western New York in exciting new ways. We published thousands of events and hundreds of articles and guides to help Western New Yorkers find things to do, events, places to eat and drink, local nature escapes, shopping experiences, family friendly adventures, and so much more.
Our Instagram and Facebook accounts both grew beyond 100,000 followers and we launched 2 new niche accounts – @stepoutbuffalo.eatanddrink and @stepoutbuffalo.thingstodo – in order to offer our audience even easier ways to find exactly the Step Out inspo they need, when they need it.
We worked with over 350 local businesses and organizations on advertising campaigns that promoted amazing places and things happening in our region.
In 2022 we hosted 3 of our own events, each featuring hundreds of local vendors. Our Fall Makers + Shakers Boozy Artisan Market had a historical record-breaking turnout with over 9,000 attendees showing up across three days of the event.
In Q2 we completely revamped our social media content strategy with a shift to almost exclusively short-form video content. The pivot took weeks to fine tune and was a huge collaborative effort between our marketing and editorial teams. Doing so allowed us to hone our short form video skills, then hone them again. In addition to social we also shifted our editorial content strategies, worked on a new website design (launching soon!), and had some good laughs thanks to our Twitter trolls.
2022 is a year that will have a momentous affect on us all. This year, like most was filled with ups and downs – from the (relatively insignificant) trials and tribulations of being a small business with big goals to the horrific racist attack on our community at the Jefferson Avenue Tops on May 14th and most recently the lives lost during the blizzard of the century. During these times we’ve done our best to make conscientious efforts to get out of the way and make room for experts, provide helpful information and resources as quickly as possible, and share lighthearted content to help our community smile – an approach we put great thought and consideration into and will continue to do so.
Western New Yorkers have been nothing short of amazing in their efforts support each other and rebuild again and again.
To our loyal readers/subscribers/followers – we can’t thank you enough for the constant stream of love and support we feel from you daily. From the uplifting messages and positive feedback to showing up at our events and sharing our content with friends and family, it’s all so greatly appreciated and it truly makes our day every time we read a message or meet you in person.
To our advertising partners – thank you for believing in us and trusting us to tell your story. It’s insanely fun and rewarding to showcase the amazing things you have to offer our community and we hope to keep at it for a long, long time.
There’s a reason we started Step Out Buffalo, and it’s because we love this city and community so much and we wanted to amplify that message as far and wide as we could. Thank you for helping us do just that for the past 9+ years.
Cheers to 2023, WNY! Great things are in store.
With great appreciation,
Team SOB
