What is share of voice (or SOV)? The share of voice of a company relates to how visible your brand and offerings are in the market across all channels (traditional advertising and media, social media, blogs, forums, and offline) in comparison to your direct competitors. 

In a nutshell, share of voice helps you determine how visible and popular your brand is with consumers compared to your competition.

This metric is solely used to refer to traditional advertising methods like print, TV, and radio, but today includes social media, online mentions, SEO ranking, click-through rate, pay-per-click, and more.

If people can’t stop singing your praises online (and off), it’s a strong indicator that your brand has a solid share of voice.

But why is share of voice so important?

SOV is crucial because it strongly correlates to market share and revenue. When your SOV exceeds your market share, this creates excess SOV (eSOV), and your market share is likely to increase over time.

Your SOV metric can also evaluate your marketing efforts on a specific channel, during a particular period, and in a set region. Additionally, calculating your competitors’ SOV will help you roughly estimate how much profit they make so you know where you stand in comparison.

By continually analyzing your results, you can tweak your marketing strategy to increase profits and reach your short and long-term business goals.

How to calculate share of voice

Here’s the formula:

SOV = Your brand’s measures / Total market measures x 100

Measures refer to the most suitable measure or metric for the specific channel in question.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to work out your SOV for Facebook mentions. You have three direct competitors, and the combined number of mentions for these brands, including yours, is 600. Let’s say that 150 of these mentions are for your brand.

The correct formula would be:

150 / 600 x 100

So, your SOV is 25%.

What can you learn from SOV?

  • Your company’s current position on the market compared to competitors.
  • How many people know and talk about your brand.
  • Which campaigns are resonating with your audience.
  • Information about your consumers through real conversations.
  • Product and service inspiration and improve your offering.
  • Understanding of how effective your current media strategy is.

Want to increase your brand’s visibility and boost your share of voice? ClearVoice can help. Talk to a content specialist to get blog posts, social media content, and videos created for your business today.