In this video, I talk about one of the most basic metrics in marketing and public relations–share of voice (SOV). It’s a common metric used in most PR strategies.
What is share of voice?
Measuring share of voice (SOV) is used to understand the visibility or coverage of your brand compared to competitors. Another factor to consider is your brand’s relevance to a particular audience. The more mentions you get from an audience, the more relevant you are, and the higher your share of voice.
Digital share of voice in marketing is similar. It measures a brand’s share of online interactions (e.g., social media mentions, website visits, or online reviews) compared to your competitors.
There are several ways to calculate the digital share of voice, but the most common method is to take the number of interactions for your brand and divide it by the total number of interactions for all brands in the same data set. For example, if Brand A has 100 social brand mentions and 1,000 mentions for all brands in its category, Brand A’s DSOV would be 10%.
While the digital share of voice is mainly used to compare brands within the same industry, it can also be used to track the performance of a single brand over time. By monitoring changes in your PR metrics, you can understand how effectively their marketing efforts drive online visibility.
Another way to think about advertising share of voice is by comparing your ad spend to your competitors. While this may give insight into your performance, it has several major drawbacks.
In this case, SOV only measures ad spend, not overall brand awareness or reach. It doesn’t consider important factors such as earned media or word-of-mouth marketing. Second, SOV can be misleading when used as a sole metric. For example, a company with a high SOV may be spending more on ads but not seeing a corresponding increase in sales. Finally, due to different market conditions, SOV can be difficult to compare across industries and regions. For these reasons, SOV should be used as one piece of data in larger marketing analysis, not as the sole determinant of success.
Why is share of voice important?
Depending on the type of analysis, the digital share of voice could be an indicator of market share, website traffic, and overall brand relevance. The analysis can also help determine the frequency of how often you post on your social marketing channels.
Here’s a more detailed explanation of measuring share of voice.
Related Videos: