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Cultivating empathy for your audience helps you connect with them better and give them better service—and it also helps you develop more effective marketing messages. Here’s how to incorporate compassion and empathy into your social media strategy.

Know your audience—inside and out. It’s important to understand the people you sell to. Write up a customer profile—many insurance agents have several customer profiles, depending on the types of insurance they sell. Understand how old your typical customer is, what their needs are, and what challenges they face in buying insurance.

From there, it can’t hurt to sit down and talk to some people. Ask them what challenges they face in buying and using insurance—and where their frustrations with the process lie. Ask them about their worries and fears, and any hot-button issues around your industry. People will have a lot of thoughts—and the more you understand what your customers are dealing with, the better you can help them.

Don’t always be selling. Social media is about building relationships—and your social media presence can’t always be about you. The occasional plug is okay, but be sure you’re also offering your audience content that they value—information, conversation, tips and tricks, or even humor. Developing an understanding for their concerns and issues surrounding insurance will help you understand the content they need.

Be aware of tone when it comes to natural disasters. Big storms, wildfires, and other natural disasters are, unfortunately, becoming more and more of a reality. It’s crucial to show compassion for your customers if they’re affected by these events.

Many brands put their social media marketing on hold while there’s a big national emergency or tragedy—with the idea that any posting might look a little self-serving during difficult times.

If you do this, it may not be a good idea to post that this is what you’re doing, however—as this can come across as insincere to some. The SEO firm Moz took some heat in 2014 for this tweet https://twitter.com/Moz/status/537306293925445632, for example.

Brands that bring the conversation toward sales, or themselves in general, tend to come across as tone deaf in times like these. Your comments should focus on the customers affected by the tragedy.

Be ready for change. Who your customer is right now may not be who they’ll always be. Your audience might change. Their priorities might change. It’s important to keep your finger on the pulse by keeping track of their own social media and regularly checking in with your own customers.

Empathy is great for business, but it’s also great for humanity. Developing a more empathetic social media presence means developing a strong understanding of your customers and the challenges they face, and tailoring your content to help them meet those challenges. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth doing.