Getting noticed is hard but staying top of mind is even harder! That’s why knowing your Share of Voice matters. 

It helps you see how much attention your brand is really getting compared to your competitors. It’s not just about brand ads anymore—it’s about who’s being talked about the most across social media, search, PR, and beyond.

In this blog, we’ll explain what share of voice means today, how it works across different channels, and how you can track (and grow) yours.

Let’s get into it!

What Is Share of Voice & Why Is It Important?

Share of voice (SOV) is a performance metric that measures a brand’s presence and visibility compared to its competitors in the marketplace. 

A higher SOV generally means that a brand is “top of mind” for consumers. This metric also offers valuable insights into customer engagement and brand authority. Share of voice is a key indicator, because:

• It shows how your brand stacks up against competitors and who’s leading the conversation,
• Helps you spot what your competitors are doing better so you can improve your own game,
• The more share of voice you have, the more people recognize and remember your brand,
• A bigger SOV makes customers more likely to pick your brand over others,
• Tracking SOV helps you see if your marketing campaigns are working or need a tweak
• It also gives you clues about what your customers like and don’t like, and what they’re saying about you.

Share of Voice vs. Share of Market

As you know, Share of voice and share of market (SOM) often get mixed together, but they’re not the same. Still, they’re closely connected—and knowing how they work together is key to building a smart marketing strategy.

• Share of voice is about visibility. As we already mentioned, it shows how much your brand is being seen or talked about across channels like social media, ads, search, PR, etc. 

On the other hand, share of market is about sales. It tells you how much of the market’s total sales your brand is actually capturing.

• SOV can come from many places like ads, social, PR, search, and more. However, share of market is strictly based on sales revenue or units sold.
• Additionally, share of voice happens early, meaning influencers build buzz and awareness first. SOM shows up later—once buzz turns into actual sales.

Remember, if SOV gets higher than SOM, you’re likely on a growth path. Brands that out-talk their market share often increase actual market share over time.

How to Calculate Your Brand’s Share of Voice

You know what share of voice is and why you need it. Now, it’s time to learn everything about the formula to measure it. Here’s the basic formula for calculating the share of voice: 

Share of Voice = (Your Brand Metrics / Total Market Metrics) x 100.  

In this formula, “Brand Metrics” are the specific data points collected for your brand (e.g., mentions, impressions, clicks).

“Total Market Metrics” just means the combined numbers for your brand and all your competitors over a set time.

The basic formula gives you a starting point. That said, to really measure share of voice accurately, you need to look at the specific metrics for each channel—like social media, search, or PR. Let’s dive in:

1. Organic Search Share of Voice (SEO SOV)

Organic search share of voice (SEO SOV) represents a brand’s visibility in non-paid search results compared to its competitors. This metric is important because about 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search.

• Formula: Number of SERP features for your brand / Total number of SERP features for your industry or competitors x 100.  

When calculating SEO SOV, it is important to focus on keyword rankings and clicks. These are directly relevant to your brand and its offerings. 

Additionally, factors like “page order” and the “search volume” of the keywords are important. Ranking #1 for a keyword no one searches won’t help much—but showing up a bit lower for a super popular keyword can boost your share of voice way more.

SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, and Keyword.com can help you track the metric. 

2. Paid Search Share of Voice (PPC SOV)

This one measures a brand’s visibility in paid advertisements compared to competitors. In Google Ads, this is called “impression share”. 

It shows how much of the total ad space your brand is showing up in compared to what’s available. Basically, it tells you how often your ads are showing when they could be.

• Formula: Your brand’s ad clicks / Total ad clicks x 100, or Your brand advertising spend / Total market advertising spend x 100. 

To maximize PPC SOV, marketers should closely monitor advertisement position and Quality Score. These factors significantly impact visibility and ad performance.

Platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads track impression share, click share, and other ad performance metrics.

3. Social Media Share of Voice

To track a brand’s visibility, influence, and customer engagement across various social media platforms, marketers use social media share of voice. 

This metric is about the percentage of the social conversation around a specific industry or product compared to its competitors. 

• Formula: Your brand’s mentions / Total industry mentions x 100.  

How often your brand shows up in people’s feeds depends a lot on the platform’s algorithm and how much engagement you’re getting. 

But it’s not just about how much you’re mentioned—it’s also about how people feel when they mention you. 

That’s where sentiment analysis comes in. It helps you see if the buzz is positive, negative, or neutral. This gives you a clearer picture of how your brand is really being perceived. 

To track the metric, brands use social listening tools such as Brandwatch, Mentionlytics, Sprinklr, Keyhole, and more.

4. PR and Earned Media Share of Voice

PR is a common strategy to increase a brand’s visibility. To measure a brand’s presence in news articles, press releases, industry publications, and other media outlets, PR and earned media share of voice comes in.

• Formula: Your brand media mentions / Competitor media mentions x 100. 

Figuring out your share of voice from PR (like media coverage or press mentions) is a bit trickier than with paid ads. 

That’s because you need to look at things like how many people actually saw the post, how much engagement it got, and where it was published. 

Remember, not all mentions are equal. For example, a shoutout in a major industry magazine is way more valuable than a random blog mention. 

So, to get an accurate picture, you have to give more weight to the bigger, more trusted sources.

Tools like Prowly and Cision help monitor media coverage and calculate share of voice in the news and earned media. 

5. Retail Media Share of Voice

The last metric tracks a brand’s visibility within search results on major online retailers (such as Amazon). This is particularly about keywords where the brand is investing.

Retail media share of voice shows how often your products show up in search results, banners, or sponsored spots compared to other brands.

• Formula: Your Brand’s Ad Impressions (or Spend, Clicks, etc.) / Total Ad Impressions (or Spend, Clicks, etc.) in the Market x 100.

The metric highly depends on how relevant your product is to search keywords and how much profit it brings the retailer. 

To boost it, brands can improve product pages, raise conversion rates, and spend more on the right keywords.

For brands working in online retail, specialized platforms like Clerk.io, Pacvue, and BidX are worth trying.

It is important to remember that share of voice is a dynamic metric. Factors such as what your competitors are doing, shifts in the market, or changes in consumer behavior can all impact it, so old data becomes outdated quickly.

How to Improve Your Share of Voice: Top 4 Strategies

Improving your share of voice means getting more of the conversation in your industry. That leads to better recognition and more customers. Here are four proven strategies to help you do just that.

1. Create Engaging and Shareable Content

Content is at the heart of an effective share-of-voice strategy. That means high-quality, informative, original, and relatable content that educates or updates your audience.

Such content is more likely to be shared, directly boosting a brand’s SOV.  What does it mean by high-quality content?

• First and foremost, try diverse content formats, including images, GIFs, videos, infographics, how-to guides, and interviews,
• Next, target content to the specific demographics, interests, and challenges. Know your audience and create their favorite content. 
• Engage, engage, and engage! It’s all about asking questions, getting feedback, and speaking up clearly on important issues—if they match your brand’s values.
• Encourage user-generated content (UGC) as it’s authentic, credible, and highly influential in shaping public perception and increasing SOV. 

2. Master SEO to Dominate Organic Search Results

A big portion of your brand’s share of voice—about 53%—comes from organic search. That’s why it’s so important to learn how to stand out in search results without relying on ads. Here are a few simple steps to master organic search results:

• Start with keyword analysis. This process includes in-depth research to identify keyword groups. The keywords should have moderate-to-high monthly search volume and strong visibility potential. 
• Then, optimize content around these keywords (On-page SEO). This means creating more keyword-targeted, relevant, and valuable content. Don’t forget high-quality product page content. 
• Beyond that, actively building backlinks to content is critical. Contact publishers in the industry to get external links.
• Finally, if you’ve got physical locations, make sure your Local Pack information is up-to-date on Google. This builds trust and increases brand mentions.

3. Optimize Paid Advertising

While organic results are foundational, to boost your share of voice faster, you have to invest in paid media ads. However, simply spending more is not enough; the investment must be targeted. 

• As a brand, you should focus your advertising efforts on specific audiences, markets, channels, and platforms.
• You also need to regularly audit the PPC budget and the keyword portfolio. This means taking another look at your keyword bids. If needed, raise the bids on important keywords so you stay competitive and get more impressions.
• Next, you should review your keyword research and ad copy to ensure alignment with your target audience. It’s also important to optimize landing pages to fit PPC campaigns seamlessly. Want more CTRs? Try different ad types! 

4. Engage in Social Media

Social media platforms are great opportunities to boost share of voice. Let’s see how you can build a strong social media presence:

• Be consistent: post regularly, utilize a content calendar to plan strategic content, and optimize posting times,
• Engage actively: This one is about responding promptly to comments, questions, and tagged posts and participating in broader industry communities.
• Humanize your brand: Show your team or content creators you work with. Also, share stories, behind-the-scenes moments, or honest feedback from customers. 
• Choose the right platforms: Where does your target audience usually hang out? Be there! For instance, Facebook might be ideal for Baby Boomers, while Instagram or TikTok resonate more with Millennials and Gen Z.
• Encourage social UGC: this can happen through contests or challenges, creating branded hashtags, and offering incentives like discounts or shoutouts for customer content. 
• Collaborate with well-known influencers: Influencers have loyal, engaged communities. They use their reach and trust to introduce your brand to new people. This starts real conversations and helps boost your share of voice in a big way.

How Influencer Marketing Can Impact Share of Voice

Influencer marketing has become one of the best (modern) ways to boost a brand’s share of voice online. How can influencer marketing campaigns help maximize your SOV?

• Build trust and credibility: Influencers have strong relationships with their followers. Around 92% of consumers trust influencer recommendations over traditional ads.
• Humanize your brand: Influencers create emotional connections that standard ads often can’t.
• Drive higher engagement: their content gets more likes, shares, and comments, which increases brand visibility and mentions.
• Reach new and niche audiences: they tap into specific follower groups you may not reach otherwise.
• Generate UGC: Campaigns often lead to customers sharing their own content, adding even more organic buzz around your brand.
• Create long-term value: Long-term partnerships (vs. one-off posts) strengthen brand loyalty and result in more genuine content over time.

Note: Unlike ads that buy attention, influencer marketing earns it—making it more authentic, cost-effective, and impactful.

To measure the impacts of your influencer campaigns on SOV, you can track brand mentions and hashtags, engagement (likes, shares, comments, saves, views), website traffic and conversions, search interest, and ROI. 

How to Boost Your Share of Voice with Ainfluencer?

If you’re serious about growing your share of voice, visibility alone isn’t enough—you need the right people talking about your brand. That’s where Ainfluencer can make a real difference.

Unlike platforms that pull outdated influencer data or leave all the outreach up to you, Ainfluencer’s database is fully opt-in. 

Every creator on the platform has chosen to be there and is open to collaboration. That means you’re not wasting time chasing dead leads—and your outreach success rate is much higher.

Even better? Ainfluencer handles the influencer outreach for you. So you’re not stuck sending cold DMs or emails. This helps you get real partnerships that actually make a difference for your brand.

You can filter influencers by niche, location, follower size, and more—whether you’re targeting nano or macro creators. The platform also shows you real-time performance data, past post examples, and verified metrics to help you find great fits for your campaigns.

And it has everything you need to run smooth collaborations:

• In-app messaging to chat directly with influencers,
• A built-in escrow system for payments (with no transaction fees),
• A Resolution Center in case anything goes wrong,
• Full Shopify integration to track and reward influencer-driven sales.

More importantly, it’s 100% free for brands. Ainfluencer only takes a small cut from influencer commissions. You’re never paying just to use the platform.

Want to skyrocket your share of voice in a smart, cost-effective way?

Sign Up With Ainfluencer

Wrapping Up

In summary, if people aren’t seeing or talking about your brand, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. Share of voice shows you how much space you actually take up in people’s minds and conversations—not just how much money you throw at ads.

It helps you spot what’s working, where you’re falling behind, and what your competitors are doing better. And when your name keeps popping up in the right places, people are way more likely to remember you—and buy from you.

One of the easiest ways to boost your visibility? Influencers. They already have the audience and the trust. With the right ones, you’re not just reaching people—you’re sparking real conversations.

That’s where Ainfluencer can help. It connects you with ready-to-work creators, handles the outreach, and lets you run everything in one place. No complicated tools. No massive budgets. Just a simple way to get your brand out there.

And to wrap it up, it’s not just about being loud—it’s about being heard. And SOV is how you keep track of that.

FAQs

Now, here are a few questions about the topic:

1. What Is a Good Share of Voice Rate?

The ideal SOV varies by industry, competitive landscape, and specific business goals. Generally, a share of voice percentage between 25-30% is often considered strong. 

However, in highly competitive industries, even a SOV between 20-40% for competitive keywords is good. 

2. Can Share of Voice Be Negative?

Yes. If most mentions are negative—like during a PR crisis—your share of voice can go up for the wrong reasons. That’s why tracking sentiment is just as important as tracking volume.

3. How Does Share of Voice Help with ROI?

Share of voice helps measure marketing ROI by showing how visible your brand is compared to competitors. It goes beyond clicks or conversions to reveal if your campaigns are boosting brand presence. A higher SOV often leads to more market share and sales.

4. What Is the Difference Between Share of Voice and Share of Search?

Share of Voice (SOV) shows how visible your brand is across all channels—ads, social media, PR, etc.

Share of Search (SOS) focuses only on how often people search for your brand vs. competitors. SOS is part of SOV, but SOV gives a bigger picture of your overall presence.

5. What Does 100% Share of Voice Mean?

100% SOV means your brand owns all the visibility or mentions in a specific market or channel—no competitors are showing up.