Note: We updated this article to provide fresh insights on how to improve your share of voice (SOV) in 2023.
Marketers leverage many different channels, so there’s no shortage of campaigns to track and metrics to measure. But as marketers, we also need to step back and ask, “what goals are we achieving?” with our marketing campaigns. Brand leadership is such a goal. Are we a leading brand in our space? And how do we even measure that?
The metric you’re looking for is share of voice. Share of voice is a great way to capture a high-level look at how well your marketing is fueling brand reach.
The problem?
Many brands don’t know how to measure share of voice or understand why it matters.
What is Share of Voice?
Share of voice (SOV) is the measure or portion of the market your brand owns compared to your competitors. SOV lets you see how popular your brand is relative to others in your space. It gives you greater visibility of your brand awareness, customer engagement and other key factors.
Interestingly, SOV isn’t new. In the past, companies found their SOV by looking at things like press coverage in the news, their share in print advertising (and later radio and TV ads) and so on.
Today, you’re going to need to look at many areas – such as web traffic, social media engagement and much more – to see what your share of voice really is. With the right tools, calculating SOV is not a problem, even if you’re a new entrant in the space.
Why Should You Measure Share of Voice?
Share of voice gives you a top-level look at how your brand’s doing against others in your space. However, measuring share of voice also gives you an insight to your competitive health in terms of market share and revenue. It equips you to see the impact of your marketing at a wider level.
How?
Knowing SOV empowers you to:
1. Do Competitor Analysis
How do you compare to other companies in your industry? Looking at your share of voice gives you an idea of how you stack up against big brands in your space. Since users can constantly access new content online, it’s critical to keep track of how you compare to other companies.
2. Measure Your Marketing Campaigns
You can track the success of recently launched marketing efforts by keeping a close eye on your impact throughout campaigns. Are more people talking about your brand? Is your audience engaging with and sharing your content? You can find out by taking a closer look at your share of voice.
3. Improve Future Marketing Campaigns
With insight into your share of voice, you can set better goals for future marketing campaigns and improve your results. That way, you can ensure that your marketing budget lands in the right place.
By looking at your SOV for each campaign, you can see which ones perform the best and dig into why that was the case. Companies can also look at their ad spending on different platforms to see which ones have the greatest impact.
4. See Brand Mentions
You can see how many people are aware of your brand. Dig deeper and you can find how much they talk about you and how often they find you online. One starting point is to check your social media mentions and/or PPC.
5. See Audience Insights
By looking at social media metrics, you can also build an idea of how people perceive your brand. Depending on the tools you have, you could gauge how people talk about you in conversations (e.g. their reviews), how they look at your competitors and other insights.
You could potentially see why they choose you over other brands (or vice-versa). You might even discover unsung opportunities through underserved audiences.
How to Calculate Share of Voice
Calculate share of voice by using this formula:
SOV = Your Brand Metric / Total Market Metric X 100
Not sure of where to start? Here’s the good news: Calculating this isn’t as complicated as it may seem. First, you should determine what metrics you’ll be measuring.
Here are some examples of SOV metrics.
- 7 share of voice brand metrics you can measure
- Organic keywords
- Pay per click (PPC) keywords
- Reach
- Mentions
- Social shares
- Hashtags
- Impressions
Once you decide what metrics you want to measure, you can calculate your share of voice.
Here’s an example. To calculate SOV for mentions, do this:
- Get your mentions.
- Find your competitors’ mentions.
- Divide your mentions by the total number of mentions of your competitors.
- Multiply that number by 100.
This allows you to determine what your SOV is for that metric. You can also separate the mentions out if you want to do a direct comparison with one of your competitors.
How to Improve Share of Voice
You now know what SOV is and how to measure it. Next, let’s talk about how you can improve your share of voice. You have different ways of doing it, but one of the fastest ways to improve share of voice is via social media. Here’s how you can tap into social media’s share of voice benefits.
1. Be Active
You need to be active across every social media platform that’s relevant to your brand, product or service, and industry. Focus on the right platforms and, in turn, pay close attention to best practices, user behavior, and other key trends on each one. Next, implement those strategies and this should help you grow your presence quickly. Get a start with our know-how on the LinkedIn algorithm.
2. Create Share-Worthy Content
Strong content is the right start, but it won’t go far unless people share it. In fact, a Kapost study found that B2B organizations waste nearly $1 billion on ineffective content marketing every year.
If your content isn’t valuable to your audience, it won’t add value to your marketing campaigns nor will it help boost your brand. Study the content that people like sharing and build it yourself.
Believe it or not, you don’t have to wait a long time for your content to gain traction. You might have an untapped wellspring of social sharers already, such as your customers.
3. Start conversations
According to one study, 90% of people say that they use social platforms to communicate with a brand. This is what your audience wants from you. Don’t use social media as a place to plaster constant advertisements for your business.
Instead, use it to interact with your audience and engage them in meaningful conversations. This will help you organically increase your reach, mentions, and impressions.
4. Leverage employee advocacy
If you aren’t focusing on employee advocacy, you’re missing on opportunities to grow. Branded messages reach 561% further when shared by employees when compared to branded channels.
You can leverage your employees’ networks on social media to increase your accomplish this. Employees can amplify your brand’s message and engage with your audience in ways that feel authentic to users.
How to Measure Share of Voice’s Social Media Impacts
You can calculate your SOV impact on social media by measuring brand mentions, impressions, reach, hashtags and other engagement metrics (e.g., “Likes” and “Shares).
Stand Out in Crowded Markets
Increasing your share of voice is key to standing out in crowded markets. In an ever-changing digital space, it’s important to measure your marketing efforts, test out new things and see what has the biggest impact on your audience.
If you use the strategies in this post, you’ll be on the right track for boosting your brand. Want to know more about branding, social selling, and employee advocacy?
