The data we measure today is increasing – while there’s no shortage of information to gather and review, it can be hard to prioritize which metrics are important. The very number of performance data available is enough to burden marketers who have to consolidate this avalanche of data that either isn’t highly relevant or isn’t time-sensitive. Now the question arises— which metrics should you be looking at?
The share of voice (SOV) metric is a good place to start when evaluating your social media presence because it can put into context any other metrics like impressions, reach, engagements and so on. This way you will know whether or not your brand’s voice is relevant to the search queries that people are putting in.
In this blog, we will explore what share of voice is, its importance and how to measure it.
What is share of voice?
Share of voice is a metric of market ownership that your brand enjoys compared to other brands in the industry. It gauges brand awareness, customer engagement and helps in competitor analysis to show you how your brand stacks up against others.
In its simplest terms, share of voice defines how prominent your media expenditure is in comparison to your competitors.
Today, it comprises several different aspects including mentions on social media and search engine visibility coupled with advertising. The share of voice definition now includes several parts of digital marketing that can have a huge impact on how potential customers perceive your business and what can make you truly stand out.
Calculating your share of voice is a great way to get a clear picture of how many people are aware of your brand. By taking into consideration the various places where you have marketing hype– such as social media, advertising or organic search engine indexing, you can use this data to find areas that need improvement.
For example, if you are doing well on social media channels but your share of voice is not as strong when it comes to organic traffic, it may mean that you need a stronger content marketing strategy, or it could just be that you need more relevant messaging to better connect with search users.
Maintaining a high share of voice is beneficial in terms of having a higher market share and generating more revenue.
Marketers describe this relationship as coming from the fact that if you are dominating conversations online, customers and potential customers will naturally have a tendency to listen to your messages more and place their trust in your brand.
Why do you need to measure the share of voice?
A lot of brands have trouble understanding how they compare to their rivals out there. After all, it can be a bit hard sometimes to get an accurate view of your company’s marketing performance.
You could look at your click-through rates and conversion rates, for example, but those metrics don’t really give you any context for what you’re doing right or wrong on the market. It’s not particularly useful if you haven’t got anything to measure yourself against– at least if you want some kind of context.
That’s where share of voice comes in handy.
Calculating your share of voice gives context to your performance data since it informs you about the following:
Audience insights
Share of voice metrics is created from stitched together social media understandings to align with actionable best practices. They reveal how people are responding when they talk about a certain brand or topic and how that information can ultimately be used by social media managers to determine consumer opinions, preferences and online conversations surrounding it.
With a tool like Radarr, marketing managers can gain audience insights from real-time and relevant data.
Share of voice statistics can help you see why customers are choosing your brand over your competitors.
For example, maybe your brand offers pocket-friendly products and top-notch customer service. Your brand probably also provides seamless website navigation or an online platform with more shipping options. If the people have spoken, it’s these tidbits that will allow you to learn who is winning the race by metrics that really matter.
In addition, one may be able to identify new market segments to target for their brand. For example, if you own a makeup line, there are a growing number of audience members who are looking to use makeup but would prefer a cruelty-free and vegan version of them. This is potentially a great opportunity to tap into a newer audience and create a cruelty-free, vegan product line.
Competitor research
To stand out among your competition, you have to know exactly what they’re doing. Scanning their sites and media can help you develop strategic ways to compete with them. Put this information along with other research data, into a spreadsheet that sums up important details like message mentions and other ratings.
You’ll want to find out where your brand is coming up in discussions with fans and followers, as well as how much reach other companies have over the discussion of your industry on social media. These are all fantastic ways to gauge a competitor’s strengths and weaknesses that give you more time to formulate a plan of attack.
Knowing which brand has conquered the conversations and how your share of voice stacks up against theirs will help you better your marketing plans which, in turn, will set your brand at the forefront of the discussion.
Brand management
The number of mentions your brand receives and the sentiment it evokes will help you gauge your brand’s share of voice. Use this valuable data to determine how your brand, product or service is being viewed by the audience in the marketplace and evaluate it against your competitors.
When it comes to your business, you should know the ins and outs of what makes it go. When you’re putting together a new campaign, many moving parts come together to make it all happen– but there is one cornerstone of each campaign which is keeping track of change.
By tracking the above data and noticing significant changes, you can see how the audience is reacting before a situation escalates into something uncomfortable that jeopardizes your brand reputation. Accordingly, you can tweak your strategy and prevent the brand from being negatively affected.
How do you measure the share of voice?
You can easily measure share of voice using the formula given below-
Share of voice (SOV) = Brand metrics / Total market metrics
This share of voice formula can be used across channels with slight deviations for certain metrics. For example, brand mentions in discussions are tracked for social SOV, website clicks can be used to gauge organic search SOV. It is much easier to track these metrics when you use tools that can do the work for you as opposed to spending hours doing calculations that would otherwise complicate the process.
Here are the 4 major areas you should be targeting to get a finer idea of your brand’s share of voice-
Social media
Get visible on social media. Social media is now a great way to get your brand in front of potential customers, improve brand awareness and increase your social media share of voice. This allows you to inform and sometimes get feedback from consumers that are interested in what you’re selling.
Certain social metrics enable brands to gauge their share of voice or the scale at which they’re being discussed on digital media. Metrics like the number of times a brand or product has been mentioned online and its engagement rate are both important measures of a brand or product’s share of voice.
Comparing your brand measures against those of the competition can provide valuable insights into how well (or not) you’re already doing when it comes to gaining traction on social media, thereby allowing for comparison tracking with brands over time for an accurate representation of your current position concerning various key performance indicators such as awareness, engagement and reputation management.
Pay-per-click or PPC
Your share of voice lets you know the number of times your PPC ad was shown relative to how many times it could have been shown. This is sometimes referred to as Impression Share and can be measured by Google’s AdWords program, which compares the potential number of times an ad could’ve shown up vs. the actual number of times it showed up.
The data you receive from your PPC share of voice will be a more definite barometer of the effectiveness of your ongoing campaigns. Based on this analysis, you can refine your ad budget.
Search engine optimisation or SEO
When it comes to organic search visibility, calculating share of voice comes with its nuances. It can be tough, but fortunately, there are online resources that can assist marketing managers in coming up with an accurate number.
The SEO rank tracker tool from Ahrefs can help you objectively compare your brand’s results on search engines like Google and Bing against those of competitors in your industry. To get an analysis done, simply copy the keywords relevant to your specific industry into their free SEO rank-tracker tool, then paste in the site URLs from competing companies.
Then, scroll through the “Competitors” tab to see where everyone ranks in terms of organic search.
Media and advertising
Here, share of voice basically measures the volume of press mentions across news and blog sites. This helps you to understand which publications are writing about your brand or sharing your content. It also lets you see what type of coverage they’re providing and how many articles are dedicated to your brand as opposed to your competitors so that you can shape your PR/outreach efforts accordingly.
Radarr is a great tool for media listening and can help you analyze your media SOV.
How to boost your share of voice?
Social media is a great way for any brand to influence and drive their share of voice which is the number of times people read or hear about your brand. When one actively drives SOV through social media channels, they can get immediate results which can be tracked and then adjusted as needed to ensure success.
It may take time to measure the ROI of your SEM and PR initiatives, but social media provides a lot more succinct data that’s easier to act on.
Let’s look at the top ways to boost your social share of voice–
Remain active on your social media handles
Posting once a week or even once a day simply isn’t enough if you want to make an impact. If you’re looking to grab the attention of customers and prospects, your voice needs to be loud! It’s not enough to just yell into the abyss– your brand has to act quickly, speak regularly and participate in relevant conversations happening online.
Make a social media calendar and post as often as required to actively remain a part of the conversation.
Engage with your audience
Don’t just use social media like any other content distribution channel. Rather, think of it as a place to create communities and engage with your audience. The key is to post regularly, but you must also take part in these conversations. Respond to their posts and messages – whether it’s to answer questions or respond to complaints or even support them when they need help.
Beyond that, there’s an opportunity for brands to respond positively to customers. Social media handlers can also look for opportunities to bring up the brand during a discussion in their niche; this brings attention to the company and an interested consumer may end up choosing you over another competitor who is not active.
With over 9 million followers on Twitter, Nike actively responds to customer queries, complaints and compliments.
Create valuable and shareable content
One of the most effective ways to get the word out about your brand is to create content that inspires and informs your audience. Ideally, you’ll have a mix of all three types of shareable content at any given point and time: informational content for the readers who are trying to learn about something new; inspirational content for those who need a pick-me-up; and entertaining content for readers who want to take a quick breather from their busy lives.
It can be difficult to come up with good material consistently, but if you focus on producing even one type of shareable material, your SOV will drastically improve.
Drive conversations to social media
When your customers are leaving comments across multiple channels, consider pushing them to your social media accounts. Doing this drives more engagement on your brand’s socials. This becomes even more effective for brands who have great content– like blogs or press releases that offer unique value to any given audience.
Go above and beyond
Like we stated earlier, social media isn’t the only way to up your game. Target other channels to boost your brand’s share of voice. These could include-
- Guest posting blogs on bigger websites or getting influencers to post on yours
- Using high-quality and long-tailed keywords that can accelerate SEO efforts
- Running paid ads on social media and search engines to gain visibility
Frequently measure sentiment behind the share of voice
When analyzing your share of voice results, you should frequently measure the sentiment behind your efforts. By doing so, you can figure out the emotion and intent of your efforts in a deeper manner.
Using tools that capture the emotions will give an added dimension to your strategy and can help you optimize your approach.
Takeaway
Calculating share of voice is a complex process that goes way beyond looking at what your brand is doing in comparison to its competitors. When you segment data from various sources on your entire digital marketing plan and then collate it with competitor performance data, you get a glimpse into the current workings of your company as well as the state of the market at large.
Using this knowledge, you can inform strategic decisions related to your products and how you market them.
Also, by periodically tracking changes in your share of voice over time and comparing them with trends in other companies in your industry, you can easily see how effective those strategic decisions have been.
Here is the complete guide to Instagram social listening.
