Today’s guest is Katie Johnson who runs Pulptown, an Orlando-centric newsletter that boasts Orlandoans should “live like you live here.” After living here over a decade, Katie has channeled all her Orlando love into producing this daily newsletter.

For about a year now, Pulptown dishes up all type of information you need to know about Orlando. In the newsletter, you will find information about important issues affecting the city like transportation and housing. Also, you will find local events and profiles on people doing awesome things in the community. “We try to put things out there that are quick, easy to understand,” Kaite said.

Love Orlando Came Second Nature to Katie

Before starting Pulptown, Katie was active in the Orlando community. She helped others promote events, freelanced, and just became an advocate of the City Beautiful and all that encompassed. Katie believes you should “make the most of everything in your back yard from the theme parks to the thousand taco places.”

Because she loved to explore Orlando, Katie enjoyed introducing a new side of the city few visitors understand. When she hosted guests, Katie asked them to sign a guestbook with their favorite Orlando experience. It excited her that she could change misconceptions about the Orlando community and let people see beyond the theme parks into everything the city has to offer.

Pulptown helps locals “live like you live here.”

A few years ago, Katie was introduced to the parent company of Pulptown, Where by Us. At the time, they just launched a similar concept in Miami because they saw a disconnect between local news and community. community. Their platform aimed to bring people back to paying attention to the local news and to get more involved in their community.

Katie was immediately attracted to Where by Us’s tag line: Live like you Live Here. She felt that encompassed the spirit that she advocated for in the Orlando community. When the company wanted to expand into other markets, Katie knew Orlando was the right place for their expansion.

Pulptown listens to the needs of their community

Each newsletter from Where by Us takes on the personality of the city. So once Katie was on board to launch one in Orlando, they needed to come up with the name that would capture the city.

After talking to a lot of people in Orlando to get a better understanding of what they were looking for in a local news source and gathering ideas, the team settled on Pulptown.

The town part was easy because it captures the small town feel that Orlando has even though we’re a large metropolitan area now. Pulp gives a nod to Orlando’s roots in the citrus industry.

Through market research, the Pulptown team discovered Orlandoan’s desire to feel connected to their community. Orlando has changed a lot in the last decade, and it can feel hard to know where to look to find the information you need now. “I hope that we do a good job of telling the things we want to know,” Katie said “because we hope that you want to know it too.”

Most importantly, Katie wants Pulptown to feel accessible for everyone. With a casual and approachable tone, “it feels like an email from your friend. You want to talk back and forth,” Katie said. She even encourages people to email her back because they believe it is a two-way conversation. Don’t be afraid to hit reply and share your thoughts or ask a question for the team to investigate.

Orlando has a lot of opportunity for those who want to build community

The way Orlando has grown in the past decade feels insane to Katie. However, it’s also exciting because Orlando is so accessible it feels like you are a part of something. Which is why Katie feels the pull of the responsibility to care for the city she loves by helping define what it should look like.

More importantly, she encourages others to be a part of that responsibility too. Whatever way is best for them is the perfect place to start. We can work together to help define Orlando’s personality and focus on priorities. “We need to do more of that,” Katie said. “More community. More conversations. More listening.”

From her small-town roots, Katie was instilled with that sense of community early on. It was only natural that she would try to foster that when she arrived in Orlando. As she has, she’s realized how important that connection to the community is.

“We have an advantage point because we have all these neighborhood districts or small pockets,” Katie told me.

Which can make different areas of Orlando feel smaller and “you can find a sense of community in those little pockets.”

About Katie Johnston

With a background in Public Relations and Marketing, Katie Johnston spent many years working in tourism and hospitality, and ten years ago, began writing content for several local restaurants and brands around Central Florida. Growing up in small-town Alabama, she’s had a love for supporting local businesses for as long as she can remember, from years of helping (read: annoying) her mom in her gift shop, to visiting her step-mom at the local paper or her grandfather at his hardware store; and she’s always been a purveyor of stories. All these years later, Katie’s found a way to bring her passion together in telling Orlandoans’ stories through Pulptown. When she’s not advocating for how cool Orlando is or how to help make it better, you can find her cuddled up on her couch sipping a glass of red wine with her 15 year-old pup, Luda, and her new fiancé, Mike. 

Links from the Episode

Sign up for the Pulptown Email
Like Pulptown on Facebook
Follow Pulptown on Instagram
Watch Pulptown on Youtube
Check out Rethink the City

The post Live like You Live Here with Katie Johnston- Episode #64 appeared first on Orlando Lady Boss.