Small Town Socialite southern Illinois

It’s been a busy couple of months. I launched Small Town Socialite Southern Illinois, announced my plans for Coffee with The Socialite events, and I also started a podcast on YouTube called Community Chat with The Socialite. What can I say, I’m consistent with my branding! And, I hope it goes without saying that my brand is all about community-building, highlighting small businesses, and small town life.

Late last year I secured my YouTube channel name @smalltownsocialite, because even at that time I knew I wanted to share content on YouTube, I just wasn’t sure what it would look like. As I’ve met more people and shared their stories, I’ve realized that some people’s stories are just better captured through conversations.

I also realize that people are busier than ever and might not have time to read an article, but can put a podcast on to play in the background while they get some steps in on the treadmill, unload the dishwasher, or are spending time doing meal prep in the kitchen. The goal with Community Chat with The Socialite is to continue to share the stories of people that are making an impact in their local communities, in big and small ways.

So far, I’ve released episodes of conversations with small town food reviewer KG, and watch the bonus episode, where he interviewed me! I also sat down with private chef and caterer Meg Lang, and Jessyca Tello, a graphic designer who recently moved to WashMo from Texas. I’m in talks with possible future guests and right now, I’m starting slowly, aiming to release an episode every other Sunday or so.

The next episode is slated to release on Sunday, Sept. 20 and it’s actually going to be a solo-cast, where I’ll go into a little more details about the podcast, the kind of people I’m looking to interview, and some future plans for the podcast.

I hope you’ll subscribe to my YouTube channel and catch the latest episode featuring Jessyca from Digital Designs by Jessyca.

It’s been two years since I decided to take Small Town Socialite from an idea in my head to a website and social media presence. Although the official launch date for the website didn’t happen until January 2025, I started planning the brand in August of 2024.

Even though I’ve never let my readers know, from the very beginning I have had BIG goals for this small town brand I’m building. I launched the website in Franklin County, Missouri and surrounding areas because that’s where I live, and being in the media industry writing for larger publications in nearby bigger markets like St. Louis, Jefferson City, and Lake of the Ozarks I saw firsthand how the publications in those areas didn’t have much interest in covering small businesses, events, or people in the rural towns in the Franklin County area.

I launched Small Town Socialite as a test, of myself, the brand, and the people in my community. I started with no money, and to this day I’ve still never spent a dime to advertise this website or my social media accounts. Could I have grown faster if I’d poured money into advertising? Probably, but I wanted to see if I could really do this, as an “outsider” who is a transplant to the rural community I write about. I wanted to know if the people would believe in what I’m doing or if this idea was just a huge flop.

The brand recognition is not where I want it to be yet, but my website and social media traffic has only grown with time, purely through word of mouth and people spreading the word both on Facebook and in real conversations with their family and friends. That’s given me the confidence to go back to those BIG goals I set out for myself when I mapped out what I wanted Small Town Socialite to become back in August 2024.

Through my 20 years of working in the media industry I’ve watched publication after publication get bought out by corporations and huge media conglomerates. I’ve watched publications with a long history go belly up. I’ve been a part of the freelance staff that’s watched those beloved publications go away.

And nowhere has been hit as hard as the rural areas. Back in the day, almost every community had a small town, local paper. Now, it’s rare to find a weekly or bi-weekly news outlet in small towns, and it’s even rarer that they’re locally owned or aren’t a part of a larger corporation. To make ends meet, most local papers keep their online content behind a paywall, meaning readers can’t read any articles for free. While I get the reasoning for paywalls, it’s not helpful to the every day person in a small town that just wants to know what’s going on in their community or read an article about the small business down the street from them.

Now that you hopefully understand what motivates me to publish content for free on the internet in a rural community, I want to get to the real point of this post. On August 31, I’m launching Small Town Socialite Southern Illinois, or Small Town Socialite SoIL for short.

I have big plans to launch in other rural regions that lack a centralized media outlet, but I chose to start in Southern Illinois rather than another community in my current state because Southern Illinois was my first home. Both sides of my family called the area home for generations, so what better way to honor my heritage than to expand into an area I already have a deep connection to, and that I know is deeply under-served when it comes to media coverage.

The SoIL site will work just like this one, but every two weeks I’ll be sharing event round ups for the entire Southern Illinois region: from the Metro East, to an area I’m calling the Route 3 Corridor (Red Bud, Sparta, Chester), to Little Egypt, and areas in between. Eventually I’ll share small business and people features from the area as well.

If you’d like to follow along with Small Town Socialite SoIL, follow the page on Facebook or Instagram.

Tag: Small Town Socialite southern Illinois

Love YouTube Podcasts? Catch Me Interviewing Community Impact-Makers on Community Chat with The Socialite

Small Town Socialite is Launching a Website to Serve the Southern Illinois Community