Share of voice (SOV) measures how much of the online conversation in your industry or niche is about your brand compared to competitors.
Definition
Share of voice (SOV) measures how much of the online conversation in your industry or niche is about your brand compared to competitors. It's typically expressed as a percentage of total mentions.
SOV is a leading indicator of market share. Brands that own a larger share of the conversation tend to gain market share over time. Tracking SOV helps you understand your competitive position and the effectiveness of your awareness campaigns.
In the social media scheduling space, there are 10,000 brand mentions in a month across social platforms. Your brand is mentioned 800 times (8% SOV), while your largest competitor gets 2,500 mentions (25% SOV). This gives you a clear benchmark and growth target.
Key Takeaway: SOV is a leading indicator — brands that grow their share of conversation consistently outpace competitors in market share over the next 12 months.
Use social listening tools to track mentions across platforms — manual tracking doesn't scale.
Track SOV by topic or keyword, not just brand name, to understand where you have content authority.
Increasing SOV through organic content is more sustainable than paid awareness campaigns.
Put this knowledge to work
Schedule, analyze, and optimize your social media with ScheduleWave. Free for 7 days.
On This Page
Category
15 terms in this category
Social Listening
Social listening is the practice of monitoring social media platforms for mentions of your brand, competitors, industry keywords, and relevant topics.
Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis uses AI or manual review to classify social media mentions as positive, negative, or neutral.
Social Media Audit
A social media audit is a comprehensive review of your social media presence — accounts, content, performance metrics, audience, and competitive positioning.
Organic Reach
Organic reach is the number of unique people who see your content without any paid promotion.
Join 500+ businesses already using ScheduleWave to save hours every week.