Share Of Voice: What It Is & Why You Should Consider It?

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There is no shortage of data to collect and assess as firms discover new platforms and outlets to advertise their products. Marketers are sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of performance data accessible. Which metrics are important to you, and which should you prioritize?

Share of voice (SOV) is a measure that reflects your market position, making it an excellent place to begin. It can contextualize all of your other social media stats so you can understand where your business stands.

Is your brand mentioned in relevant talks concerning the things you sell? Is your firm regarded as an industry leader? If not, you may be experiencing an issue with your brand’s share of voice.

This piece delves into this measure in-depth and shows you how to increase your share of voice on social media and other platforms.

Share of voice is a measure of how much of a market share your brand has in comparison to other brands in the same sector. It assesses brand recognition and consumer engagement to see how you compare to the competition.

In the classic meaning, the share of voice determines how much money you spend on media relative to your competitors.

As the number of digital marketing channels has risen, the definition of share of voice has expanded to cover online exposure as a whole. It currently includes many aspects of digital marketing and advertising. This covers social media mentions and traffic for certain keywords.

Measuring your brand’s share of voice allows you to understand the larger picture and where your brand fits in. It provides context to your performance data, helping you to identify areas for development and improvement.

Calculating your share of voice may help your business in a variety of ways, including:

Audience Perceptions

Social media share of voice metrics gathers information from actual social media interactions. They examine what people are saying about a certain brand or issue and utilize that data to infer customer attitudes and preferences. You might be able to determine why individuals choose your brand over the competition using the share of voice statistics. Furthermore, you may be able to uncover chances to reach hitherto untapped audience segments.

Competitor Analysis

Knowing your competition is essential for differentiating your brand. Identifying their strengths and shortcomings can assist you in developing strategic approaches to catching up or getting ahead.

You may use SOV calculation to see how you compare against the competitors. Which brand is stealing the spotlight in your industry? How much of their voice do they have in comparison to yours? Where are the dialogues taking place? And how do people feel about those discussions?

Understanding the answers to these questions can assist you in identifying chances to strengthen and differentiate your brand. Conducting in-depth competition analysis with a share of voice lenses can help you discover new possibilities.

Management Of A Brand

Data on the share of voice indicates the number of talks about your brand as well as the mood behind those conversations. This enables you to track your brand’s reputation and compare it to that of your competitors.

Changes in such benchmarks may suggest a growing controversy or a potential product problem. Tracking is especially critical when launching a new campaign. This helps you prepare to generate an acceptable reaction swiftly and manage your brand’s image.

How to Calculate Share of Voice

To compute your share of the vote, use the following formula:

Share of voice = Your brand metrics / Total market metrics

The same share of voice methodology applies to all marketing channels, with minor differences in specific measurements.

It’s now easier than ever to determine the share of voice thanks to tools that do the heavy work for you and provide reasonably exact results.

When estimating the share of voice, there are four primary factors to consider:

Share Of Voice On Social Media

Consumer dialogues on various social networks contribute to your social media share of voice. Because you’re tracking actual customer postings and interactions, it’s a highly accurate statistic.

Social media analytics solutions make this process easier by recognizing all of your company’s or product’s mentions across all channels. You may then compare your brand metrics to those of your competitors to see where you stand.

Your PPC share of voice calculates ad visibility by comparing the potential number of times an ad may have appeared with the actual number of times it appeared. Google AdWords allows you to compute this as Impression Share, which takes your campaign and keyword parameters into account to estimate this “possible” visibility.

You may utilize your PPC SOV statistics to see how effective your campaigns are right now and where you need to adjust your budget.

Share Of Voice For SEO

Calculating organic search share of voice is a little more difficult, but it is doable by employing SEO tools that compare your search visibility on critical terms for your brand to rivals.

This is the percentage of all clicks from the keywords you tracked that resulted in a visit to each site. Use this information to see whether you have gaps in your visibility on crucial themes for your business and where you may need to improve your competitive research activities.

Share Of Voice In The Media

The media share of voice calculates the number of times your brand is mentioned on news websites and blogs. What industry journals are discussing your brand, and in what context? How many industry experts or journalists are writing about you, and how are they portraying you? This offers you a sense of how popular your brand is among your peers and industry professionals.

You may also determine which media are discussing your rivals and compare how many publications are referencing them in comparison to you. This can help you decide which newspapers to target for outreach and public relations activities.

Social media is an excellent tool for actively increasing your brand’s share of voice in order to get faster outcomes that can be measured and refined.

Analyzing the impact of your SEO and PPC initiatives might take time, which delays your SOV assessment. You also have less control over your media SOV because you are dealing with third-party outlets.

In the meanwhile, social media is easy to manage and change. You can immediately assess performance and make modifications to maximize your efforts.

Try out these five techniques for increasing your social media SOV in particular.

You must be engaged on social media in order for your brand to obtain recognition.

To strengthen your brand’s voice on social media, you must begin posting regularly and consistently. You may utilize our study on the optimum times to publish or look at your data to see if there are any trends in how postings perform at different times of the day. Create a social media calendar to prepare your content ahead of time and constantly schedule your updates to stay on track.

Participate Rather Than Simply Broadcast

Avoid the common error of viewing social media as merely another route for content dissemination. Rather, it is a gathering place for communities to interact and engage with one another.

That is, in addition to writing on a regular basis, you should interact with your audience. Respond to their comments and messages — whether to answer a question, address a complaint, or offer assistance.

Creating shareable content is one of the best methods to get people to talk about your company.

Create content that is valuable to your audience and encourage them to share it with their audience. That is to say, your material should perform one of the following:

Educate and inform them;
Inspire and entertain them;

Promote Dialogues On Social Media

Consider finding strategies to push conversations to your social accounts if your clients are engaged in other channels such as your blog entries or customer care. You may bring together conversations that are taking place across numerous platforms to enhance engagement and, as a result, your mentions and share of voice.

Highlighting social customer care on your website is one approach to encourage your consumers to use it instead of email or phone assistance. This might include speedier response times, simpler communication, or even obtaining quick replies from chatbots.

The path to increasing your brand’s share of voice does not end with social media. There are other ways to strengthen your brand’s voice through different marketing channels:

Look for opportunities to guest post on trustworthy blogs and include industry figures in your own blogs. This is an excellent strategy to obtain brand mentions in big publications, which may enhance your media and organic search share of voice at the same time. Furthermore, when those newspapers and influencers share the information with their social media followers, it will stimulate discussions about your business and increase your social media SOV.
Increase your SEO efforts to get your material on Google’s top page and gain greater visibility. To begin, focus your keyword research on user intent and utilize those keywords to generate high-quality content that people are looking for.
Increase brand exposure by running appealing and intriguing sponsored advertising across channels such as social and paid search.

Try out several sorts of copy and ad creative to find what works best. You may also improve the exposure of your adverts by adjusting your keyword and campaign targeting.

Your social analytics may reveal a great deal about your brand’s share of voice and how to increase it for overall company success. So, take advantage of the chance to harness your social data to increase your share of voice while unearthing important customer insights.

Leveraging User-Generated Content (UGC) to Boost Share of Voice

User-generated content (UGC) plays a vital role in increasing your brand’s share of voice. By encouraging customers to create and share content about your brand, you can organically expand your reach and elevate your brand visibility. Here’s how UGC contributes to boosting share of voice:

Benefits of UGC for Share of Voice:

Organic Brand Mentions: When customers create content like reviews, posts, or videos featuring your product or service, they naturally mention your brand. These organic mentions significantly increase your brand’s presence across social platforms, websites, and forums.
Improved Credibility and Trust: Potential customers trust UGC more than traditional advertising. Seeing real people share their experiences fosters credibility and trust, which can influence their decision-making and increase your brand’s credibility.
Increased Engagement: UGC encourages more interactions on social media. When users engage with content from other customers, it further spreads your brand’s message and elevates your share of voice. The more people talk about your brand, the more likely it is that you’ll dominate conversations within your industry.

How to Leverage UGC:

Run UGC Campaigns or Contests: Engage your audience by running campaigns where users submit photos, videos, or stories of their experience with your product. A creative hashtag or contest incentivizes sharing, making it easier to track mentions and boost visibility.
Encourage Reviews and Testimonials: Ask satisfied customers to leave reviews or share testimonials. These can be shared across your social media platforms and incorporated into your website or ads to further amplify brand visibility.
Engage with UGC: When users share content about your brand, don’t just leave it to sit. Like, comment, and share their posts on your own channels. This engagement fosters a sense of community and encourages more people to contribute.
Repurpose UGC in Marketing Materials: Integrate UGC into your advertising materials, social media posts, and email campaigns. For example, feature customer photos in your Instagram feed or website galleries to show off real-life examples of your product in use.

The Impact of UGC on Share of Voice:

Expands Reach: Every piece of UGC is a potential marketing channel. Customers who share content about your brand expose it to their networks, expanding your audience base and increasing your share of voice.
Builds Customer Loyalty: When customers feel that their content is valued and featured by your brand, they develop a stronger emotional connection and become loyal advocates, spreading your voice further.

Tracking Share of Voice Across Multiple Devices and Platforms

As consumers interact with brands through various devices and platforms—smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, social media apps, and even voice search—it’s crucial to track your share of voice across these touchpoints. Here’s how doing so can enhance your brand’s visibility and understanding of consumer engagement:

Why Track Share of Voice Across Devices?

Comprehensive View of Your Brand’s Reach: By tracking mentions and interactions across all devices, you can get a clearer picture of how your audience engages with your brand on different platforms. This comprehensive view helps you optimize your strategy and ensure your brand is heard everywhere.
Improved Cross-Platform Strategy: Each device and platform has its own user behavior. Tracking your share of voice across devices lets you identify where your audience is most active, allowing you to tailor your marketing campaigns to be more effective on those specific channels.

Key Platforms to Track for Share of Voice:

Mobile Devices (Smartphones & Tablets):
- Consumers spend a significant amount of time on mobile devices. Track mentions across apps, mobile-friendly websites, and mobile social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter to measure how often your brand is being discussed.
Desktop & Web:
- Desktop users often engage in more detailed content consumption, such as browsing blogs, reviewing product pages, or reading news articles. Tracking share of voice here can reveal how your brand is perceived in long-form content and professional settings.
Social Media Apps:
- Different social networks (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter) serve different demographics and purposes. Track mentions, interactions, and shares to understand how your audience perceives your brand across these platforms.
Voice Search:
- Voice search is on the rise with devices like Google Home and Amazon Alexa. While more difficult to track, mentions through voice search can still impact your brand’s share of voice. Monitoring voice search insights through tools like Google Search Console can help you understand your brand’s performance in voice search results.

Benefits of Cross-Platform Tracking:

Accurate Performance Measurement: Knowing where your brand is being discussed, whether on mobile or desktop, gives you more precise performance metrics, allowing for better optimization of your campaigns.
Faster Adjustments: Real-time data allows you to make quick adjustments to your strategy. If a particular platform is outperforming others, you can focus resources to enhance your visibility there.
Understanding Cross-Platform Behavior: Tracking share of voice across platforms helps you understand how users interact with your brand across different stages of their customer journey, from discovery on social media to research on websites.

Tracking Share of Voice Across Multiple Devices and Platforms

In today’s interconnected world, consumers interact with brands through a multitude of devices and platforms, such as smartphones, tablets, desktops, apps, and even voice search devices like smart speakers. This diverse media landscape means that your brand could be mentioned in a variety of contexts, each with different levels of engagement and reach. Therefore, tracking your share of voice across these devices and platforms is essential for understanding how well your brand is performing and where your audience is engaging most frequently. Here’s why it matters and how to leverage this data for your marketing strategy:

Why Tracking Share of Voice Across Multiple Platforms is Important

Understand Consumer Behavior Across Touchpoints:
- Consumers today are more likely to research, shop, and interact with brands across multiple devices. They might begin their journey with a search on a mobile phone, switch to a tablet to read reviews, and finally make a purchase on their desktop. Tracking share of voice across all these devices gives you valuable insights into which platforms are most effective at attracting and retaining your audience.
Ensure Consistent Brand Presence:
- Whether your audience is browsing on mobile apps, conducting searches via desktop, or using voice commands, you need to ensure that your brand remains visible and consistent across all channels. Monitoring how your brand is mentioned across different platforms helps you identify gaps and opportunities in your multi-channel presence, allowing you to maintain a unified voice and consistent messaging.
Tailor Content and Campaigns for Each Platform:
- Every platform has unique characteristics, user behaviors, and expectations. For example, mobile apps may require short, visually engaging content, while desktop experiences may allow for longer, more detailed articles. By understanding where your brand is being mentioned and how consumers engage with it, you can tailor your content to each platform’s strengths. This ensures that your marketing efforts resonate with your audience and are optimized for their preferred device.

How to Track Share of Voice Across Multiple Devices

Use Multi-Platform Analytics Tools:
- Leverage tools like Google Analytics, social listening platforms (e.g., Brandwatch or Sprout Social), and SEO tracking software to monitor how often your brand is mentioned across different touchpoints. These tools can help you track share of voice on social media, in search results, on websites, and even on mobile apps.
Monitor Voice Search Mentions:
- With the rise of voice search, it’s important to track your brand’s visibility on voice-activated devices like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. While tracking voice search can be more challenging than traditional methods, optimizing for voice search and monitoring mentions on these devices can give you an edge in an increasingly voice-driven world.
Track Mobile vs. Desktop Interactions:
- Using mobile-first tracking features, identify where your brand is most active on mobile versus desktop platforms. By measuring share of voice across these devices, you can assess the effectiveness of your website’s mobile experience, app interactions, and desktop user engagement.
Social Media Monitoring:
- Social platforms offer real-time insights into how users engage with your brand, whether through likes, shares, mentions, or comments. Use tools like Hootsuite or Social Mention to track your brand’s share of voice across social channels, and see how it varies by device (smartphones, tablets, or desktops). This can help you adapt your social media strategy based on the platforms where engagement is highest.

Benefits of Tracking Share of Voice Across Devices and Platforms

Better Campaign Optimization:
- With detailed insights into where your brand is getting the most traction, you can adjust your marketing campaigns accordingly. For example, if your mobile presence is outperforming desktop, you might focus more on app-based campaigns or mobile ads. Alternatively, if voice search is a growing channel for your audience, you can enhance your content for voice query optimization.
Enhanced Consumer Engagement:
- Understanding the platforms your audience prefers allows you to create more personalized, platform-specific content. You’ll be able to engage your audience in a way that feels natural and relevant to the device they’re using, improving the overall user experience.
Identify Opportunities for Growth:
- Tracking share of voice across multiple devices helps you identify underserved areas or new opportunities. For instance, if your brand has a limited presence on voice search, you might decide to invest more in optimizing for voice queries, tapping into an emerging trend.

End Note

Share of Voice (SOV) is a vital metric that helps businesses understand their market presence, customer perceptions, and competitive standing. By tracking and optimizing SOV across various platforms, including social media, PPC, SEO, and media coverage, brands can strengthen their visibility, improve engagement, and build a loyal customer base. Embracing strategies like user-generated content and cross-platform tracking can significantly boost your SOV, driving overall brand success and positioning your business as an industry leader.

Tuhin Banik

Thatware | Founder & CEO

Tuhin is recognized across the globe for his vision to revolutionize digital transformation industry with the help of cutting-edge technology. He won bronze for India at the Stevie Awards USA as well as winning the India Business Awards, India Technology Award, Top 100 influential tech leaders from Analytics Insights, Clutch Global Front runner in digital marketing, founder of the fastest growing company in Asia by The CEO Magazine and is a TEDx speaker and BrightonSEO speaker.