After recently attending a conference for communications and digital marketing professionals, a thought stuck with me. At the core of everything we do in this industry, beyond strategy decks and social calendars, are real humans.
If you work in communications, you’ve likely heard the word “empathy” tossed around often. While it’s easy to brush it off as just another buzzword in a sea of industry jargon, the truth is: empathy should be at the foundation of everything we create and share.
As a public relations professional and graduate – with a minor in psychology – I’ve always been curious about what makes people tick. Why they think the way they do and how they feel when they interact with a brand. I believe that great messaging doesn’t just speak to people but also tries to connect with them and meets them where they are. That’s the true magic of digital empathy.
We communicators spend so much time building personas that we forget to ask: what’s truly driving people? Real empathy in communications goes far beyond demographics. It asks not just who someone is, but how and why. The age-old question of how can we as communicators genuinely support our audience or consumers? The answer, empathy.
Empathy, especially in the digital world, is what keeps brands, and the people behind them, human. It’s how we make someone pause in the middle of a scroll, in a busy, cluttered feed. It’s how we build trust and impact. At the end of the day, our work isn’t about algorithms, brand colours, or perfectly crafted messages. It’s about people behind the screen and what resonates with them.
As I left that conference session, I didn’t just feel inspired, I felt challenged. I started thinking more critically about how I could bring the idea of digital empathy into my day-to-day work and share it with my team. It wasn’t just a feel-good takeaway; it was a practical mindset shift.
Approaching each piece of content, whether it is a social caption, an internal note, or even an email subject line, with a simple question, “Am I just delivering content, or am I creating a connection?” encourages the practice of empathy in a digital landscape. Let’s continue to build brands and stories that feel less like billboards and more like conversations. Less like sales pitches and more like support systems. Because at the end of the day, we’re not just marketing to audiences – we’re communicating with humans. And that’s where the real impact begins.
Amy Theriault is a PR Assistant at Brookline Public Relations. With a background in marketing and social media, she always looks for authentic audience connection with every campaign she supports.