What is Share of Voice (SOV)?

Share of Voice (SOV) is a metric used in marketing to measure a brand’s visibility and presence in the market compared to its competitors.

SOV indicates how much of the total conversation or advertising space a brand owns within its industry. It is often used to understand a brand’s dominance in terms of advertising, social media presence, or other forms of communication.

SOV can be calculated for different marketing channels, such as paid media, social media, organic search, or earned media.

A higher share of voice indicates that a brand is more visible and has a stronger presence compared to competitors, which can lead to greater brand awareness and market share.

Importance of Share of Voice

• Competitive Analysis: SOV helps businesses understand how their brand compares to competitors in terms of visibility and reach. It provides insights into whether the brand’s messaging is resonating with the target audience.
• Brand Awareness: A higher SOV often correlates with greater brand awareness. The more visible a brand is, the more likely it is to be recognized by potential customers, which can lead to increased market share.
• Benchmarking: SOV serves as a benchmark to track the effectiveness of marketing efforts over time. By monitoring changes in SOV, businesses can assess whether their strategies are helping them gain more visibility in the market.
• Strategic Planning: Understanding SOV allows marketers to make informed decisions about where to allocate their marketing budget and resources. If a competitor is dominating a particular channel, a brand may choose to invest more in that area to increase its presence.
• Predicting Market Share: Research suggests that there is often a positive relationship between share of voice and market share. Brands with a higher SOV are more likely to capture a larger share of the market, making SOV an important metric for growth.

How to Calculate Share of Voice

SOV can be calculated using the following formula:

SOV (%) = (Brand’s Advertising or Mentions / Total Advertising or Mentions in the Market) × 100

For example, if a brand has 30 mentions in a month, and there are a total of 150 mentions in the industry, the SOV would be:

(30 / 150) × 100 = 20%

This means that the brand holds 20% of the total share of voice in the market.

Types of Share of Voice

• Paid Media SOV: Paid media SOV measures a brand’s share of paid advertising, such as TV ads, radio ads, or online ads, compared to competitors. It helps determine whether the brand’s advertising efforts are reaching the target audience effectively.
• Organic Search SOV: Organic search SOV measures a brand’s visibility in organic search results compared to competitors. It reflects how well a brand’s SEO efforts are performing and whether the brand is ranking well for relevant keywords.
• Social Media SOV: Social media SOV measures the brand’s share of the conversation on social media platforms. It tracks mentions, engagement, and overall social presence compared to competitors.
• Earned Media SOV: Earned media SOV measures the share of media coverage and mentions a brand receives in comparison to its competitors. This can include press coverage, influencer mentions, and word-of-mouth.

Best Practices for Increasing Share of Voice

1. Invest in Advertising: To increase SOV, brands can invest in paid advertising across different channels, such as TV, digital ads, or social media. The more visibility a brand has, the higher its share of voice will be.
2. Create Engaging Content: High-quality, engaging content can help increase a brand’s SOV. By creating content that resonates with the target audience, brands can encourage more shares, mentions, and engagement, boosting their visibility.
3. Leverage Social Media: Social media platforms are powerful tools for increasing SOV. Engaging with followers, creating shareable content, and running social media campaigns can help a brand become a larger part of the conversation.
4. Improve SEO: Optimizing content for organic search can help increase organic search SOV. By targeting relevant keywords and creating valuable content, brands can improve their rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs) and increase their visibility.
5. Partner with Influencers: Collaborating with influencers can help boost a brand’s earned media SOV. Influencers can introduce the brand to new audiences and encourage more mentions and conversations about the brand.
6. Monitor Competitors: Understanding what competitors are doing can help identify areas where a brand may need to increase its efforts. By tracking competitors’ advertising, content, and social media activities, brands can adjust their strategies to improve their SOV.

Challenges of Increasing Share of Voice

• High Competition: Increasing SOV can be challenging in highly competitive industries where multiple brands are vying for the same audience’s attention. It requires significant investment in advertising and content creation to stand out.
• Budget Constraints: Increasing SOV often requires increased spending on advertising and marketing activities. Budget constraints can limit a brand’s ability to increase its visibility in the market.
• Measuring Impact: While increasing SOV is important for brand awareness, it can be difficult to measure the direct impact of increased SOV on sales and revenue. Brands need to track multiple metrics to understand how SOV contributes to overall business goals.

Final Thoughts

Share of Voice (SOV) is a valuable metric for understanding a brand’s visibility in the market and how it compares to competitors.

By increasing SOV through advertising, content creation, social media engagement, and SEO, brands can improve their visibility, brand awareness, and ultimately their market share.