Southern True Crime - Advocacy, Investigation, Prevention, Storytelling

Raven's background is in Legal Research and she is a Private Investigator. Professor Mandy McNeely is a professor of Victimology, Domestic Violence, Psychology, and Criminal Justice.

The Sirens Podcast is a true crime podcast for the deep south & southwest.

The Sirens Podcast has listeners who love to learn, advocate, and support ethical true crime.
 

Sirens was started by Raven Rollins in Sept 2019 and officially released it's first episode in Oct of 2019. When the podcast started, Raven was unaware that there were two seperate kinds of true crime podcast and quickly fell into the entertainment category with her first co-host, Holly Archer.

"I wanted to start a true crime podcast based around my hometown of Ada, Oklahoma. Everyone has heard of The Innocent Man, but no one hears about all the other cases from there. So I started there and got over 18 hours of podcasting on Ada alone. Then I branched out to Oklahoma in general, then other southern and southwestern states."

Raven started with Holly, but is ending with Mandy.

"Holly had to take a step back after season 2, which gave me time to reevaluate where I wanted the podcast to go. I decided I didn't want to be entertainment, I wanted to be informational. I changed the direction of the pod into an ethical based podcast format focusing on advocacy, crime prevention, investigations, and then storytelling. I started bringing on expert guests and one of them became my new co-host, professor Mandy McNeely. She is a professor of Victimology, Domestic Violence, Psychology, and Criminal Justice, so she was a perfect fit. We have now interviewed people like Othram Labs, Kathy Reichs, Jax Miller, and so many more who bring expertise to the cases we cover and answer questions we are all asking in the true crime world. We also get to heavily advocate for victims and their families, even getting a couple in the news to highlight their cases to try to get them some answers."

The podcast has been reformed to match the content - no more entertainment, only advocacy.
 

We don't make much, so most of the funding comes from our own pocket. It's worth it when you can move a case forward when no one else has.

It's hard to find time sometimes, but we set our schedule a year in advance so we can make sure to have time for recording, interviews, editing, and other production time.

We spend a couple hundred a month currently.
 

What we gain has no monetary value. To see a victim's family member rejoice because their loved one is being remembered, or their case is getting movement is all the gain we need.

We currently do not have any sponsors, but are always open to them.

We find that constantly learning in this industry and networking with others is the biggest benefit for ourselves.
 

We know a lot of people in real life who are real experts in their field. From there, they spread the word and others come to us. And I have found that if you just ask, most say yes to being on the show! We haven't had a no yet. We do most interviews in person or via Zencastr, but are open to whatever the guest is most comfortable with.

Our process is research, write-up the episode, record, edit, structure the episode, release! That simple!
 

We use a lot of social media for marketing. We are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. We find all of them helpful in their own ways. We also send out press releases to other media when we have a big case and have successfully gotten 2 cases into the local news.
 

Take you time and know exactly what you want from your pod and where you want it to go. Use as many resources you can get your hands on.
 

We can be found at www.thesirenspodcast.com or www.patreon.com/thesirenspodcast, also www.facebook.com/thesirenspodcast. We have ways to contribute and donate on our website.