Every minute, billions of conversations occur online globally, and your brand has a choice. You can choose to lead the conversation narratives or be swallowed by the fierce competition from competing brands.
Brands that dominate the share of voice in their market don’t just steer conversations. They dominate the industry. Most strikingly, those with at least 10% extra share of voice grow rapidly compared to their counterparts.
The thing is, you don’t have to shout louder. You should be smart and strategic in creating meaningful connections and showing up in relevant channels that matter the most.
Channels like PR, SEO, paid ads, and social media accord your brand the chance to own its space and rise above the competition. We’ll show you how to claim your share of voice and convert it into your brand’s biggest asset.
Share of voice (SOV) is a metric that measures the visibility or presence of a brand, product, or service as compared to its competitors (other relevant brands or products/services in the market).
Here’s the basic formula:
Share of voice = (Your brand’s metrics/Total market metrics) x 100
Traditionally, the share of voice metric was used to describe a brand’s advertising share on print, TV, or radio. But currently, it includes every form of your brand’s measurable awareness, like PPC, web traffic, online mentions, and more.
Though the above formula is standard, there is a slight variation in the metrics depending on the channels used. Let’s explore how to calculate the share of voice of your brand across channels 一 SEO, social media, PR, and advertising.
To measure your brand’s SEO share of voice, you’ll need to examine your brand’s impressions or clicks in the SERPs or relevant queries.
- Start by selecting your list of keywords or topics you want to focus on.
- Extract the first page of SERP rankings for every keyword or topic. You can use a keyword research tool like Semrush or Ahrefs to gather comprehensive keyword ranking data.
- Export your data into a chart for a better visual.
- Then, apply this SEO SOV formula to determine your percentage
SEO SOV = (Your website’s organic search traffic for specific keywords/Total organic search traffic for those keywords) x 100
You can also use position tracking tool like Semrush to automatically determine your site’s share of voice.
Calculating the social media share of voice lets you assess how many users mention your brand and products on social media compared to your rivals.
- Start by selecting the timeframe for which you’d like to analyze the results. It can be a week or the whole campaign period.
- You can use third-party analytics tools to track your social mentions alongside your competitors’ mentions. This gives you an idea of your market presence relative to others.
- Then apply this social media SOV formula to calculate your share.
Social media share of voice = (Number of brand mentions/Total number of industry or competitor mentions) x 100
PR SOV assesses the amount of media coverage your brand earns compared to your competitors. It lets you determine the effectiveness of your brand’s PR campaigns and its visibility in the public eye.
To determine this metric:
- Start by listing the channels you want to track. These can be blogs, newspapers, or podcasts. Tools like Cision or CoverageBook can help you collect data on your brand’s PR mentions.
- Filter out mentions unrelated to your brand to ensure data accuracy.
- Track your competitor mentions within the same media outlets and timeframe.
- Then, apply this PR SOV formula to calculate your brand’s SOV.
PR SOV = (Your brand’s media mentions/Total number of your industry or competitor media mentions) x 100
Determining paid search share of voice means examining various pay-per-click (PPC) metrics. This helps you know how much of the industry advertising space your brand occupies compared to your competitors.
Here’s how to go about it:
- Begin by tracking your brand’s impressions generated by the PPC campaigns over a specific period. You can use Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising.
- Determine the total industry impressions, including those of your competitors. A tool like Google Auction Insights can help you do that.
- Then apply this advertising SOV formula to determine your share.
Advertising SOV = (Number of impressions for your brand/Total number of impressions for your industry or competitors) x 100
There is no standard share of voice, as the percentage varies per market and industry. But anything between 10% and 30% is a strong share of voice.
For example, in the first quarter of 2024, Amazon maintained a 35% overall share of voice, while Verizon captured an 18% advertising share of voice. Both have a fair share of voice, yet in different industries.
Even so, a higher SOV is good as it signifies your brand has more online visibility and market share.
A higher brand SOV than the market share is called eSOV. It is a key driver to your brand’s growth level and market share. Typically, a 10-point difference amounts to 0.5% additional market share.
For example, say your brand has a market share of 20.5% and an eSOV of 10 points. It would grow to 21% market share over a year [(20.5%-10) / 0.5%].
Keep in mind that spending more on brand communication doesn’t directly create an eSOV. Instead, focus on raising your brand’s share of voice relative to your competitors if you want long-term results.
Measuring your brand’s SOV provides valuable insights beyond brand mentions. It helps you understand the impact of your marketing strategies while ensuring your brand remains in customers’ minds.
Here’s why you should prioritize measuring the SOV of your brand:
1. Get Insights into Your Target Consumers
Monitoring the share of voice allows you to get valuable insights concerning your target consumers. It helps you:
- Compare customer views, engagement levels, and purchasing patterns related to your brand with those related to your competitors.
- Examine how users rate your products, campaigns, or services. For example, a positive sentiment can guide your product development or streamline your marketing approach.
- Understand the industry’s emerging trends and how they affect your brand and marketing strategies.
- Segment your audience based on interests, age, or location to effectively customize your campaigns.
2. Uncover Competitor Strengths and Weaknesses
Besides getting valuable insights about your brand, SOV also highlights how your competitors behave. It lets you:
- Assess the channels and platforms your competitors have higher visibility on and find which strategies work for them. For example, your competitors may lead in social media visibility but may be behind in SEO results, allowing you to spot opportunities to tap into.
- Analyze competitor mentions to highlight gaps in their strategy, like untapped keywords or wasted advertising opportunities.
- Understand their market positioning and compare it with your brand’s performance to analyze how to strengthen your market position.
3. Manage Your Brand’s Reputation
Monitoring your brand’s share of voice gives you real-time insights into how your target audience perceives it. Here’s how this benefits your brand reputation:
- Assessing mentions lets you understand audience sentiments concerning your brand. This way, you proactively address concerns that arise to preserve your brand’s reputation.
- SOV allows you to spot influencers or customers who speak highly of your brand and amplify their voices to increase your brand integrity.
- Monitoring your PR and campaign effectiveness ensures they build your reputation rather than inadvertently ruining it.
4. Measure the Success of Your Marketing Campaigns
Calculating your share of voice lets you appraise the effectiveness of your marketing strategies across channels. It helps you:
- Monitor variations in your brand’s SOV during and after campaigns to assess if they improve your brand visibility.
- Compare your campaigns against your competitors and see if your brand outperformed them in primary areas like search results or press coverage.
- Measure the growth in your brand mentions, impressions, or shares directly attributed to your campaign efforts.
- Correlate changes in SOV with your marketing spend to inspect which campaign yielded the most ROI.
5. Optimize Your Strategy for Growth
Based on the insights you gather from metrics like share of voice and brand mentions, you can double down on content that brings you massive wins (say, the most shares or reposts). It can help you generate more user engagement and encourage conversations about your brand or products.
If your social media marketing spans multiple platforms, sharing your content across them can become daunting. That’s where you can use a social media management tool.
Once you identify your winning content formats and topics on social media, use SociaPilot to execute the new content strategy effortlessly.
Its scheduling capabilities enable you to batch-create content for your social profiles across channels 一 Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and more. You can also set up smart queues to re-arrange posts or add a last-minute trending post to your week’s plan to maintain a consistent posting schedule without burning out.
Tracking SOV analytics can also help you identify your best hashtags, products, and most rewarding influencer collaborations. Use them more often to boost your visibility and brand recall further.
Don’t let your brand awareness trail behind your competitors when your strategy is at your fingertips. We’ve compiled six pro tips that can help improve your share of voice across channels, ensuring your brand remains relevant, influential, and competitive.
1. Capitalize on Trends
Capitalizing on trends is a smart way to improve your brand’s SOV and beat your competitors.
Although trends are a goldmine, you don’t have to jump on to every popular one if it doesn’t resonate with your audience. Your approach should be authentic and valuable.
Keep in mind that timing is everything here. You need to proactively track industry news and social media trends in real time to tap into opportunities that echo your audience’s sentiments.
Google Trends and social media hashtags work magic in identifying trends and promoting conversations, respectively.
For example, as a beauty and makeup business, you can explore the top and rising trends in the “Beauty & Fitness” category. The Google Trends report below shows that people are most interested in hair, nails, and tattoos.
When you dig into each trending search topic and query further, you can identify more niche topics and even brands that consumers are interested in.
Starting conversations on trending topics can help you engage more users, especially if you include a relevant hashtag with your social posts.
Choose trending topics or viral moments that align with your brand’s goals and products to seize your audience’s attention and boost engagement promptly.
Sadly, 51% of social media users will unfollow a brand that publishes irrelevant content. That’s why you should create valuable, engaging, and personalized content that naturally attracts shares.
You can capitalize on the content format with a higher sharing potential.
For example, visual content improves shareability by 40%, with infographics and illustrations being the most successful, taking up a 52% share.
Remember to use the best storytelling tactics to emotionally connect with your audience and raise the likelihood of earning shares for your content. 73% of marketers believe this approach promotes deeper customer connections and brand memorability by 22X, improving content shareability.
For example, LEGO uses storytelling through immersive words, character creation, and visual appeal to emotionally engage their consumers. These consumers then share their content on social platforms.
3. Participate in Brand Conversations
Talking to your audience is key if you want to build valuable connections and improve your brand’s share of voice. Social media is an excellent place to stimulate conversations.
You can use thought-provoking questions or post engaging polls centered around your brand. Even so, engage your users by promptly responding to their questions, comments, or mentions. Consider hosting Live streams or webinars to interact with them in real time.
User-generated content (UGC), such as contests and challenges, can also help you generate buzz around your brand, significantly increasing your share of voice. Notably, brands using UGC increase engagement rates by 28% compared to those that don’t.
4. Establish Yourself as a Niche Expert
63% of users value thought leadership content as it proves your brand genuinely cares. And 67% even go the extra mile to discuss your content with their peers or colleagues, promoting your brand’s SOV.
Bottom line: Position your brand as an authority in your niche to effectively grow your share of voice. You can publish blogs, white papers, or case studies demonstrating your expertise.
Speaking at industry events or engaging in niche platforms complements your strategy. While at it, stay consistent to establish your brand as a go-to resource for your audience.
5. Collaborate with Influencers
Influencers can be excellent brand advocates in advancing your brand’s SOV. After all, 69% of consumers trust their recommendations over information coming straight from your brand.
But, collaborate with influencers whose audience matches your target demographics. You may want to work with micro-influencers, as they have a highly engaged niche audience, generating 60% engagement compared to macro-influencers.
Don’t stop there. Track the influencer results with metrics like reach, engagement, and conversation to examine the impact on your SOV and refine future collaborations.
6. Run an Employee Advocacy Program
Your employees have valuable networks that can expand your brand reach and increase its share of voice. To top it off, the content they share gets 8X more engagement than your brand’s content.
When your employees talk about your brand on social media, your brand earns 561% more reach than when you share the same message from your brand’s account.
Do you see how huge this gap is? You can only tap into this extra reach and visibility if you educate and empower your team to share your brand messages confidently. You may also consider rewarding them for their successful advocacy efforts to encourage continuous content promotion for your brand.
Key Takeaway
Share of voice reveals the areas your brand thrives on, where it is losing its ground, and how the audience views it.
With a strategic digital marketing plan, you can create experiences that resonate with your audience and spark conversations, thereby, improving your brand’s share of voice. So, get started!
