Share of Voice (SOV) measures your brand visibility relative to competitors. Learn how to calculate SOV across channels and use it for competitive analysis.
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Request DemoShare of Voice (SOV) is a metric that measures your brand's visibility in the market relative to competitors. Originally developed for advertising, SOV now extends across all marketing channels—measuring what proportion of the total conversation, impressions, or mentions in your market belongs to your brand.
The concept is simple: if there are 1,000 total brand mentions in your category and 200 mention your brand, your share of voice is 20%. Higher SOV indicates greater visibility; lower SOV means competitors are capturing more attention.
SOV matters because visibility precedes sales. Research has shown a consistent correlation between share of voice and market share—brands with higher SOV tend to grow, while those with lower SOV relative to their market share tend to decline.
The traditional definition: your brand's advertising spend or impressions as a percentage of total category advertising. Measures paid media presence.
Calculation: (Your ad spend or impressions ÷ Total category ad spend or impressions) × 100
Your visibility in organic search results for relevant keywords compared to competitors. Measures how often you appear when people search for your category.
Calculation: (Your organic clicks or impressions for category keywords ÷ Total organic clicks or impressions) × 100
Your brand's share of social media mentions, engagement, or reach in your category. Includes both owned content performance and earned mentions.
Calculation: (Your brand mentions or engagements ÷ Total category mentions or engagements) × 100
Your share of media coverage and earned press mentions compared to competitors. Measures public relations effectiveness.
Calculation: (Your press mentions ÷ Total category press mentions) × 100
Research by marketing effectiveness experts has identified a powerful relationship between share of voice and market share:
When SOV exceeds market share, brands tend to grow. The difference (SOV - Market Share) correlates with market share growth rate. This is why challenger brands often "over-invest" in marketing relative to their size.
When market share exceeds SOV, brands tend to decline over time. Market leaders who cut marketing budgets often see gradual erosion as competitors capture more voice.
This relationship has important strategic implications: to grow market share, you typically need SOV higher than your current market share. To maintain share, SOV should at least equal market share.
SOV is always relative to competitors. Define which brands to include—direct competitors, adjacent products, or the entire category. The competitive set should align with how customers view their choices.
Which channels matter for your market? B2B technology might focus on organic search, LinkedIn, and industry media. Consumer products might emphasize paid media, social platforms, and retail visibility. Measure where your customers actually pay attention.
Decide what to count: impressions, mentions, engagement, clicks, or spend. Different metrics tell different stories—impressions measure reach, engagement measures resonance, clicks measure intent.
Use social listening tools for social and PR SOV, SEO tools for organic search SOV, and competitive intelligence or media monitoring services for advertising SOV. Some data requires estimation or proxies.
Calculate SOV for each channel and overall. Track trends—is your SOV growing, stable, or declining? How does it respond to campaigns? Regular measurement reveals whether marketing investments are capturing more voice.
SOV analysis informs marketing budget decisions. If you need ESOV to grow, calculate what investment is required to exceed your market share in voice.
Track competitor SOV changes to detect strategy shifts. A competitor increasing SOV may be preparing for growth; declining SOV might signal retreat.
Compare your SOV across channels. Strong social SOV but weak search SOV reveals where to shift resources for better overall visibility.
Measure SOV before and after campaigns. Did the campaign increase your share of conversation? How quickly did gains fade after the campaign ended?
Volume doesn't equal quality. High SOV with negative sentiment isn't valuable. Always consider sentiment alongside volume—being talked about for the wrong reasons hurts more than silence.
Measurement challenges. Getting accurate competitive data for SOV calculation can be difficult, especially for advertising spend and some digital channels. Results often involve estimation.
Different channels, different weight. A mention in a major publication may matter more than dozens of social posts. Raw SOV numbers don't capture the relative influence of different mentions.
Correlation isn't causation. While SOV correlates with market share growth, other factors matter too. Product quality, pricing, distribution, and customer experience all influence outcomes.
Share of Voice connects to several marketing and competitive concepts. Brand monitoring provides the data for social and media SOV measurement. Social listening tracks the conversations that comprise social SOV. Competitive benchmarking extends the concept to other performance dimensions. Market share analysis provides the market share data needed to calculate ESOV. Competitive intelligence helps track competitor SOV and strategy changes.
You've learned the concepts - now see how Fragments.ai automates competitive intelligence so your team can focus on winning deals instead of hunting for information.