Local Living
A community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland.
Local Living
PR With Purpose
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We sit down with publicist Julie Khanna to unpack what PR actually is and how earned media can serve real people, not just big budgets. We talk through practical ways local businesses, nonprofits, and health experts can share clear stories that close information gaps across our community.
• defining public relations across print, digital, TV, radio, podcasts, and collaborations
• why health, wellness, and nonprofit communications can change lives locally
• translating complex hospital and medical updates into plain-language stories
• free ways to get visibility through the Wellington Edit and daily media opportunities
• distribution partners, vendor lists, newsletters, and relationship-based marketing
• how retainer PR works and what ongoing pitching looks like
• building a podcast content strategy from repeated questions and search data
• realistic expectations for content growth and why “viral” is not a plan
www.khannaconnections.com
www.khannahousestudios.com
email: create@khannahousestudios.com
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast!
Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_02Welcome, welcome everyone to Local Living. We are a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. And as always, I am David Conway, your host. And today we've got somebody that probably should be sitting in my chair. She's really well versed in this entire medium. It's Miss Julie Kana of Kana Connections. Julie, welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02So I was excited to have you and gotta admit, a little intimidated. I did a little minor dive, not a deep dive, to learn a little bit more about you. And you've got your hands in all sorts of media, really high-level stuff representing businesses, individuals, nonprofits. Julie, why don't you tell me and the audience a little bit more about you and what you do?
What Public Relations Really Means
SPEAKER_00Sure. Well, thank you very much for the introduction. And don't be intimidated, please, because one of the things that when I set out to do business was to be able to do business with everyone, right? I realized that there was a disparity in who could afford to advertise and create content and who couldn't. And the people that could afford that were losing out. So when we started our businesses, it really was of the mindset that there was something for everybody within our companies. So, like you were saying, I am in media. I'm a publicist, that's first. And Kana Connections does a lot of traditional public relations, but we also employ a lot of modern day strategies. And I do find that there's a lot of misconceptions around what exactly PR is, especially these days, where a lot of influencers and social media professionals will say that they are public relations. Public relations is truly your traditional getting folks into different modalities of media. So print, digital, television, broadcast, radio, and some modern techniques are now your podcasts and influencer collabs. So that's what we do on the day-to-day. And then on top of that, we have a studio out here in Wellington where we helped create content. Um, we're helping people build out their own studios. We run a lot of social media accounts as well. And then, like you, I'm also on the publishing side as well.
SPEAKER_02And your your magazine, or I think you I think you publish one and you're correct in charge of another. So the the the publication that you do publish is called the Well of PVC. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00We are the editors in chief. So you can think of us as we execute the vision of the publisher for the well of PVC, which is a very, very unique publication.
SPEAKER_02And so I want to turn back the clock just a little bit.
Why Kana Connections Exists
SPEAKER_02So what what led you to to start kind of connections? Tell us a little bit more about your background.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So what started me here is because I just felt like there was a lot of people that weren't getting good information that was going to help them. And this is information that can change people's lives. So we work traditionally with health, wellness, and your nonprofits. So these are your resources in the community, right? And a lot of times there are folks, our neighbors, right, ourselves. We don't even realize what resources we have right here in our hospitals, right here within two, three mile radiuses. You know, a lot of folks are just facing adversity and they don't realize there's nonprofits who have budgets allocated to help them. And so that really spoke to me. I I wanted to help close that information gap. So I began pitching to our local news. Anytime I would learn about a wonderful resource in the community that I thought was going to help the public. Then the second thing I found was that there was an information, um, there was a disconnect between bringing some of this higher level information, like there's a brand new machine at the hospital that could save your life, you know, or a new diagnostic at the hospital that could help you. And how do we tell that story in a way that the public can understand? Because the other thing was things were being reported at such a high level that it was going over people's heads unless you were in medicine. So we started taking some of that information and really, really digesting it and turning it into something that was easily able to be consumed by the public. And what we found was people were realizing what was in their backyards. They were empowered to be able to make informed decisions about their own care and knew where to get resources within our own communities. So it was very, very rewarding. Um, to this day, fast forward, we still stay in that niche. I don't really go outside of it because this is this is where my heart's at. My team, they all share the vision. So we we enjoy being able to help people on the day-to-day.
SPEAKER_02So I'm guessing there's some real synchronicity because on one hand, you're working with the health and wellness, but you're combining that with your hard work and nonprofits.
Health And Nonprofits Work Together
SPEAKER_02I imagine those two come together quite often. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Because when we look at a healthy individual, it's a comprehensive view, it's never one thing, right? So a lot of times there's multiple things happening at once. Like, God forbid you get a diagnosis, now you're out of work, you can potentially run into income situations. So it's really is looking when you look at a person as a whole, there's there's typically more than one thing that's happening. And so we are feel very, very blessed every day that the information that we get to help connect and disseminate within the community is typically something that can support someone's well-being.
SPEAKER_02So let's say I'm a business, small business. Um, I just started a small wellness clinic or or or something of the like, and I've I've dabbled a little bit. I took out an ad here, I tried some some some meta ads on my own, which I didn't really have a grasp of or time to um execute in a productive manner. I want to reach out to you. Tell me a little bit more about the process and what you could do for that business.
Free Ways To Get Visibility
SPEAKER_00Sure. So we we do get uh met with a lot of times people that are brand new. Maybe their budgets are really um, you know, they're just not there yet, right? So we always have a few ways that people can work with us for free. There's got to be something. So the other thing we have is back up second.
SPEAKER_02So you said that there is a way for them to actually work with you for free, as in zero dollars.
SPEAKER_00Zero dollars, zero cents. I did not start this, I did not start out this way to make anybody sit out, right? Like there's that's not the day that happens, I I don't want to be in business anymore. So, like we all started somewhere. There's got to be something for everyone. So few ways that we do that. Um, one, we do have the Wellington Edit, which is an online publication. It's pretty new in the sense that it's about six months old, and we're reaching almost over 17,000 unique web visitors a month. So if you are brand spanking new, please send us your information. We'll always publish it. As long as obviously it's ethical, it's factual, right? It's like don't I don't want if it's good news, like news about your business and what you're doing, we will publish it with the backlinks. Like that is my promise to you. As long as we are in circulation, that's what we'll do. Second thing we have is a media group. So we have a media group on Facebook and we present folks with free media opportunities every single day. So because we work so close with the news, with radios, with so many different outlets, they will they will reach out to us often for different types of experts, different, you know, people that can speak on a variety of topics. Well, we don't always have that specific expert on our roster. So we will open it up in the media group. And if that's your niche and you can speak on it, it is yours for free. Go take it, get a little air time, get a little broadcast time. But I mean, listen, not to not to sound like I'm so, you know, self not self-serving, like it also behooves us, right? If we continue to to give the news high quality experts, we continue to have a really great working relationship with them. And again, it helps it helps everyone. It's just a win-win. Why, why would I gatekeep that if I don't have to? Um, and then there's just there are a few other ways. So in addition to that, in the well of PVC, if you are a business in in our area that can commit to sharing our digital news when it comes out, we'll print you in there as a distribution partner. So, you know, be a good steward of our messaging and helping to share that on your socials, share it in your newsletters. Then you become a you become a distribution partner. We have a vendor list that we keep alive and well. So if you're a small business, you can always add yourself to our vendor list. We share that with all of our clients and our contacts. So um typically we just ask for like a small discount for people that refer to us so that it doesn't go to us. We're not asking for a kickback. It's so that it's just to incentivize our people to come to us for our vendor list, right? So, and we've we've got a pretty good following. Um, so and then signing up for our newsletters because we do flash sales all the time, and we also connect people with opportunities all the time. We have we have a few campaigns going out right now with large brands that are looking for people that'll post about their stuff. We're we're gonna be adding all that into our newsletter. So it's another way, just free opportunities.
SPEAKER_02So to subscribe to the newsletter is free. Correct. That's what you're saying. That's not a paid subscription.
SPEAKER_00Nope. And then from there, we also will publish free opportunities as they come and flash sales.
SPEAKER_02So I've got to ask, you're doing a lot over there, and obviously you didn't get into what you're doing for the money. That comes comes uh right through loud and clear. But there's gotta be revenue. So where if if if I wanted to take the relationship with your business a little further and help have you promote my business, how does that come into play?
SPEAKER_00Right.
Retainers And Studio Production Services
SPEAKER_00So we we operate like a traditional public relations agency. We charge our our clients on retainer. What makes us a little different? One is we're excellent at what we do. We are we are certainly excellent. We are aggressive and we do our jobs well. Um but also we don't really give our clients a we don't really give them any criteria. We go, go, go, go, go. Like some people will give you a finite amount of work per month that they're willing to do. Most we taste all the opportunities that we can get because our success is their success. So our retainered clients, that's one way that folks work with. That's truly the only way on the public relations side. We really only work off of retainers. But then in the studio, we do a lot of production. So I am speaking to you from our studio here in Wellington, Florida. People come in here, they create their content, they create their shows, we produce everything from single one-person shows that are just, you know, streaming off of LinkedIn all the way to major productions on location. So, and everything in between. So, obviously, those are paid.
SPEAKER_02So, for someone, a business that uh, you know, they listen to podcasts, they they know it can actually be a revenue producer and brand builder for their business. If you could, I I I think I think this would be interesting to the listener. Can you can you walk me through that process again? So let's say I'm I'm a doctor and I want to share a little bit of my knowledge and and but I don't really know how to package it. How does that process? So they reach out to you and and take me through those steps if you could.
Building A Podcast Content Strategy
SPEAKER_00Sure. So the first thing is you always have to kind of assess like what's their level of understanding that they already have, um, and then what are their expectations, right? Because uh some people come in here and they want to be overnight famous, other people come in here and they just want to be able to get the word out. Other people come in here and they want to form relationships with the guests that they're gonna bring onto their show. So you just want to kind of assess so you can manage realistic expectations for everyone involved, and then also assess what is their level of understanding of the online world, social media and podcasts, right? So we're finding that the new type of creator right now doesn't have a big digital footprint. So when we first started, it was people that were already comfortable being online, sure, they were already creating content, maybe sharing little videos online, exactly. They just wanted convenience and and that's it, and that's fine. Um, but as the world has evolved and things have gotten more convenient, you can create content from your phones, those guys have pretty much moved on. And our new avatar of the person that we're seeing, our new customer, is the person that really doesn't have a digital footprint. They don't understand social media. So they need a little more education um going into this. So if you're the brand new doctor and you wanted to start your show and we've assessed that you don't have a big digital footprint, you don't know where to start, you're not even consuming podcasts or social media yet, then we're gonna give you some tools to help you. Um, and a lot of times you have some of those tools, right? So we we tell these doctors, like, what are some conversations that you feel like you're having over and over and over again? Because that represents a knowledge gap in your industry. Where are the questions that you're getting over and over and over again? What are some of the grievances? Like, start taking notes in the note section of your phone. All of these will become really great topics. Um, and then there's also online tools for stuff like that, right? So, like answer the public is a good one. That is a um, it's a site where you can go, you can enter in information about your industry, you can get really, really granular, and it will tell you what people in your area are searching when they think of that. What are they Googling? Because if you can identify where the knowledge gaps are and you can answer people's questions, now you're creating good content. So it's making kind of that content strategy together and then and then a little media training, like how do you get on camera? How do you, you know, how do you interview a guest? How do you stop a guest from speaking too long? Like, how do you transition? And a lot of times they're they're pretty much during that process, they start consuming some podcasts, they start learning, and they're ready to go by the time it's time to film.
SPEAKER_02So when someone re let's say someone's thinking about reaching out to you, do you find that occasionally there may be something that that they've got totally wrong about what to expect? Uh working with you, maybe a myth of how this all works. What what what's been your experience with
The Viral Fame Myth
SPEAKER_02that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So um it's typically the person that comes in here and wants to go viral right away. That's usually one of the hurdles. I don't see that as much anymore. Most people kind of understand like it takes time and what comes along with that. And even going viral once is not enough. It doesn't, it's just not anymore. So it's really managing their expectations and then also teaching them what they can do with their content to help capitalize on it, right? Without going viral.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting you say that because I've got a bunch of kids more than I'm gonna share today, but uh young and old, and and and I can tell you my my younger kids um have numerous friends that have gone viral once, and they they actually made a little revenue, right? But it was just once. So it's interesting that you brought that up. So tell us a little bit more about you, Julie.
Life Outside Work And Volunteering
SPEAKER_02I don't want to uh pull the onion back, you know, peel it, peel it back to too far, but you're obviously working a lot, I can tell that just by talking to you. When you're not working, you're working and you're playing and and you're and you're thinking of how you can help help your clients and how you can build build your uh your footprint. I I know that, but when when when you pull back just a little bit, uh what do you like to do? Tell us a little bit more about you.
SPEAKER_01Sure. I love people, I love good people, I love spending time with good people that I enjoy spending my time with.
SPEAKER_02I guess you're in the right business then.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I'm a free bird. I go wherever my my little heart takes me when I when I have the time.
SPEAKER_02So what is okay, so free bird. So what was the last uh the last trip or jaunt that your little heart took you to?
SPEAKER_00Okay, let's see. The other night I went out dancing with my friends, and that was so much fun. You say it out very late, but I loved it. I had a great time. Um, yesterday I did a volunteer project that I loved with my friends, and then we all went, we we went and read to a bunch of kids in a summer youth program. Um, but we read books in Spanish, which I don't speak Spanish, so that was that was fun. And then we all went out to eat afterwards. And um, I just I pop over to we've got a little club down the road where I go to the pool with my girlfriends.
SPEAKER_01I really just I'm non-committal to anything outside of work, and I just go wherever my heart takes me.
SPEAKER_02You know, I I was thinking you'd have to think for a while, you'd go back a few months. You gave me three things in the last two days. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I live a painful life. I have a good time.
Who Should Reach Out And How
SPEAKER_02That's amazing. So who should reach out to you, Julie?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so really on the studio side, we work with anybody. So anybody who's interested in creating content, we and if you're a creator, if you are even in a videographer or you're in the same space as us, we have a media mashup, which is like a networking group for other media professionals. So literally anyone and everyone should check us out. Um, you can find us at Connor House Studios on social media. And then on the PR side, if you are in the health, wellness, or nonprofit spaces, definitely reach out to us. Um, we'd love to have a conversation about what that looks like. And then anybody who's got news to share, you can always keep the Wellington edit on your distribution list.
SPEAKER_02So, and what's the quickest way for them to reach out? What's the most efficient way for for people to reach you?
SPEAKER_00Yep. So create at Canahouse Studios.com is the email address on that side. And then for Connor Connections, connect at kaniconnections.com.
SPEAKER_02Well, let me tell you, Julie, you've got a rare combination. You're you're dynamic, you're obviously extremely knowledgeable. And underneath it all, it really comes through that you actually care about not just your clients, but people in general. It it's been great having you on the podcast today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. You have a wonderful weekend, and I can't wait to listen and share this.
SPEAKER_02Once again, everyone, this is Julie Kana with me today uh with Kana Connections, Kana House Studios, the well of PBC, and a bunch of other things that uh I'm not mentioning now. And and again, I'm David Conway, your host of Local Living, and we look forward to having you back real soon.