How much of the conversation in your market is about you compared with your competitors. On social media it is usually your mentions (or engagement, or impressions) as a share of the total for you and a chosen set of competitors.
Formula
Share of voice = your mentions ÷ (your mentions + competitors' mentions) × 100
Example
In a month Meera's store has 180 mentions and three competitor boutiques have 820 between them. Her share of voice is 180 ÷ (180 + 820) = 18%.
How you'll hear it
“Our share of voice in Pune ethnic wear went from 12 to 18 percent, but a third of it is complaints.”
What it helps you decide
Whether to spend more on awareness, and how you compare with specific rivals over time. It is also used to check whether a campaign moved the conversation.
Where people misread it
People treat a higher share as better without checking sentiment, so complaints count as wins. The number also depends on which competitors you choose to include, so it can be made to look good by picking a small set.
The story
Meera wants to know if her store is talked about as much as the other boutiques in her area. She tracks four stores' mentions for a month.
| Meera's store | 180 |
| Boutique A | 420 |
| Boutique B | 260 |
| Boutique C | 140 |
| All four stores | 1,000 |
|---|
Meera's share of voice is 180 ÷ 1,000 = 18%. Boutique A has 42%. Her first thought is to spend more on awareness ads to catch up.
Then she reads the mentions. 54 of her 180 were complaints about late deliveries, so 30% of her conversation was negative. Much of Boutique A's volume came from one viral complaint thread.
Share of voice counts noise. It does not say if the noise helps you. And it depends on which competitors you include; add a big chain store and her share would shrink overnight.
Meera fixes the delivery problem first, then tracks share of voice alongside the share of negative mentions each month.
All figures are fictional and illustrative.
Work out your share of voice
The example's numbers are filled in. Replace them with yours.
More than a quarter of your mentions are negative. Fix the cause before trying to raise your share of the conversation.
Don't confuse it with
- Market share: your share of sales, not of conversation.
- Sentiment: whether mentions are positive or negative.
Related terms
Want to use this at work? AI-led Social Media Excellence is aFactor's 16-week program for social media work.
Sources
- Share of voice definition: How to measure it, Sprout Social
- What is Share of Voice (SOV)?, Brandwatch
- Social media metrics to track, Hootsuite, 2026