A podcast with the mission to help ALL Southerners find belonging and community without having to change who they really are.

I am a physician in the Deep South with a mission for helping Southerners of ALL types to find community and belonging without feeling that they need to change who they truly are to fit in. This is especially for those of us who don't fit the Southern "jell-o mold."
 

I have been listening to podcasts for years. I got started in the 2010s when I had a long commute every day and found podcasts a great way to learn and grow. I started a podcast for my medical group during the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, and that started my podcasting bug. After that, I started a podcast for women physicians. I loved that interaction with listeners and the feeling that I was really helping others to feel like they were not alone. Belonging In The South has a mission I wasn't sure I could deliver on when I first started podcasting, but as I became more comfortable with my ability to produce episodes and really listen to what my audience needs, I realized it was time to take the leap. So, in December I started writing scripts and interviewing other Southerners who were in my target audience to find out what they really wanted to hear, and ultimately released my first episode at the beginning of March 2023.

As a kid in the '80s, I was nerdy, quirky, and introverted, and was not popular. That experience helped me develop the ability to see others when they're feeling out of place or when they're being marginalized. In the years since I've started practicing medicine, I've realized that a large number of my patients feel like misfits in some way. And that affects their well-being and their ability to flourish. Many of my listeners are people of color or in the LGBTQ+ community, or they don't fit Southern stereotypes in general.
 

I have released weekly and hope I can keep up with that cadence over time. I really do work hard on editing to make my content easy to listen to and engaging for the listener. That means I prepare for interviews, I write scripts for solo episodes, and I have an audio engineer who produces my interview episodes. As a full time physician and a mom, wife, friend, and lots of other things, I use scraps of time throughout the week to get the work done on the podcast. I have tried to batch tasks but in the beginning, I haven't been able to do that so well because I'm still having to do a bit of convincing to have guests record with me. I am spending about $400/month on the audio engineering services and a little more for the software I use, and since this is such a new podcast I am funding it myself.
 

I would LOVE to have sponsors, but don't have any yet. It would be really important to me that any sponsors I have are from inclusive organizations or businesses in keeping with my mission.

Doing the podcast is incredibly meaningful to me in and of itself, and in the long term I would love to be able to have synergistic relationships with businesses that have similar missions to the podcast.
 

I use a Shure MV7 mic and Riverside.fm for recording interviews. I used zoom with my first two podcasts and the sound is nowhere near as good as with Riverside, where the audio is recorded locally. I then use Descript to content edit the episodes before sending off to my audio engineer who polishes everything. Before I worked with an engineer, I used Descript to remove filler words and to add music. I use royalty-free music from Epidemic Sound. Buzzsprout is my podcast hosting service and I've found their analytics to be very useful.
 

I get about 60% of my listeners from the Apple podcast app, 30% from spotify and then a collection of other apps for the rest. I am about to use the Buzzsprout Ads service for the first time, so that will be my first paid ads. I have mostly gotten listeners from word of mouth using my networks on social media and asking friends to share. This included alumni associations from schools I've attended, which has been great. I am actively posting on Instagram and some on TikTok but those have generated only marginal increases in my listeners so far.
 

1. Don't create different podcast art for every episode unless it just gives you particular joy. It's a waste of time.
2. Your episode will never be perfect. You'll get better over time and that's ok. Just get started.
3. If you want to gain respect of your audience, be willing to take a stand. Conversely, show that you're willing to listen and to change if presented with convincing evidence to the contrary.
4. Don't try to maintain social media accounts on all the channels right at first. Just pick one, nurture it, and branch out later. You can't do it all.
 

My podcast website is www.belonginginthesouth.com. I am most active on Instagram and TikTok where you can find me @Dr.Lauderdale. You can contribute to my mission to buy me a coffee here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lauderdale.