Share of Voice
The percentage of total market conversations, mentions, or advertising spend that a brand owns relative to competitors.
What is Share of Voice?
Share of Voice (SOV) measures how prominently your brand appears in market conversations, media coverage, search results, or advertising relative to competitors. Originally an advertising metric (your ad spend as % of total category ad spend), SOV now applies broadly to: organic search visibility (share of keyword rankings), social media mentions (share of brand conversations), PR coverage (share of media mentions), analyst reports (share of mentions in industry reports), and review site presence (share of total category reviews). High SOV correlates with brand awareness, market influence, and often market share.
Why It Matters
Share of Voice predicts future market share growth. Research shows that brands with SOV exceeding their actual market share tend to grow, while those with SOV below market share tend to decline. Monitoring SOV reveals whether your marketing investments are building presence relative to competitors or merely maintaining it. Sudden drops in SOV signal competitors outspending or outperforming you in key channels. SOV also informs content and SEO strategy—identifying which keywords competitors dominate helps prioritize investment to recapture share.
How to Measure and Grow Share of Voice
Define the SOV dimensions most relevant to your business: paid search (use auction insights from Google Ads), organic search (use SEMrush or Ahrefs to track keyword rankings vs. competitors), social media mentions (use Brandwatch, Mention, or Sprout Social), PR coverage (track media mentions using Meltwater or Cision). Calculate your SOV: your brand mentions / total category mentions × 100. Benchmark monthly. To grow SOV: increase content production targeting high-volume keywords competitors rank for, increase PR and thought leadership activity, boost paid advertising in categories with low organic presence, and leverage customer reviews on G2 and Capterra. Monitor SOV alongside metrics like brand awareness surveys and pipeline influence.
Concrete Examples
A marketing automation platform tracks organic search SOV and discovers they rank for only 8% of category keywords versus their main competitor's 35%. They launch a 12-month SEO content program targeting competitor-dominated keywords, growing organic SOV to 19% and organic pipeline by 40%. A B2B security vendor monitors social media SOV and notices a competitor's SOV spiking—investigation reveals they launched a major analyst campaign. They accelerate their own analyst relations program to counteract the narrative shift. A SaaS company tracks share of G2 reviews and realizes competitors have 3x more reviews—they implement a customer review solicitation program, growing review volume by 200% and improving category search visibility.
Turn competitive intelligence into actions
Flares monitors competitors 24/7 and delivers weekly digests so you never miss a move.
Discover Flares14-day free trial · 30-second setup