📍Share of Voice (SOV) is a metric that measures your brand’s visibility and presence compared to competitors across various marketing channels, including search engine results, social media, advertising, and online mentions.
Share of Voice helps businesses understand their market position by analyzing how much of the total conversation, search visibility, or advertising space they occupy. This metric provides valuable insights for strategic planning and competitive analysis.
How Share of Voice Works
Share of Voice calculates your brand’s portion of total visibility within a specific market or channel. The measurement varies depending on the platform being analyzed, but the core concept remains consistent across all applications.
In search engine optimization, Share of Voice measures how often your website appears in search results for target keywords compared to competitors. This includes analyzing ranking positions, click-through rates, and overall search visibility for relevant terms.
For social media, Share of Voice examines mention frequency, engagement levels, and conversation volume around your brand versus competitors. This helps identify which brands dominate discussions in your industry.
Types of Share of Voice
SEO Share of Voice
SEO Share of Voice measures your website’s visibility in search engine results pages compared to competitors. This metric considers ranking positions, search volume, and estimated traffic for target keywords. Higher rankings for high-volume keywords increase your SEO Share of Voice significantly.
Tools like Rush Analytics SERP Monitor help track your Share of Voice by monitoring keyword rankings across multiple search engines and locations. This data reveals how your visibility compares to competitors over time.
Social Media Share of Voice
Social Share of Voice tracks mentions, hashtags, and conversations about your brand across social platforms. It measures both volume and sentiment of discussions, helping you understand your brand’s social presence relative to competitors.
This type of analysis reveals which brands generate the most engagement and positive sentiment within your industry. Social Share of Voice often correlates with brand awareness and customer loyalty metrics.
Advertising Share of Voice
Advertising Share of Voice calculates your ad spend and impression share compared to competitors in paid advertising channels. This metric helps evaluate your competitive position in paid search, display advertising, and other paid media channels.
Google Ads provides impression share data that shows how often your ads appear compared to total available impressions for your target keywords. This directly relates to your advertising Share of Voice.
Calculating Share of Voice
The basic Share of Voice formula divides your brand’s metrics by the total market metrics, then multiplies by 100 for a percentage. However, the specific calculation varies depending on the channel being measured.
For SEO Share of Voice, the calculation involves identifying your target keyword set, measuring your website’s visibility for these keywords, calculating total market visibility, and determining your percentage of the total visibility.
Social media Share of Voice calculation focuses on mention volume, engagement rates, and conversation sentiment. The formula considers both quantity and quality of brand mentions across platforms.
Benefits of Tracking Share of Voice
Share of Voice provides clear insights into your competitive position within your market. By tracking this metric over time, you can identify when competitors gain or lose market presence, allowing you to adjust your strategy accordingly.
Understanding your Share of Voice helps optimize marketing budget distribution across channels. If your SEO Share of Voice is low but social media presence is strong, you might allocate more resources to content marketing and link building.
Share of Voice serves as a proxy for brand awareness within your industry. Consistent growth in Share of Voice typically indicates increasing brand recognition and market presence.
Tools for Measuring Share of Voice
Several tools help measure Share of Voice across different channels:
- 🔍 Rush Analytics SERP Monitor tracks search engine Share of Voice by monitoring keyword rankings and visibility
- 📱 Brand monitoring tools like Mention and Brandwatch analyze social media Share of Voice
- 💰 Google Ads provides impression share data for advertising Share of Voice
- 📊 Social media analytics platforms measure engagement and mention volume
Each tool focuses on specific channels, so comprehensive Share of Voice analysis often requires multiple platforms working together.
Summary
Share of Voice provides valuable insights into your brand’s competitive position across marketing channels. By measuring and tracking this metric consistently, businesses can make informed decisions about marketing strategy, budget allocation, and competitive positioning.
Regular Share of Voice analysis helps identify opportunities for growth, track campaign effectiveness, and understand your brand’s market presence relative to competitors.