How to Calculate Share of Voice in Social Media

Knowing your share of voice on social media tells you how much of the conversation around your industry belongs to you versus your competitors. This isn't about vanity metrics or follower counts, it's a vital measure of brand awareness and relevance in a crowded digital space. We’ll walk through exactly what share of voice means, how to calculate it step-by-step, and how to use that data to make smarter marketing decisions.

What Exactly is Social Share of Voice (SOV)?

Social Share of Voice (SOV) is a measurement of your brand's exposure in online conversations compared to your competitors. In simple terms, for every 100 times people in your industry are talking about a brand online, how many of those mentions are about your brand?

If your SOV is 25%, it means you are capturing one-quarter of the total conversation within your competitive landscape. It’s a direct reflection of how visible and relevant your brand is in the eyes of your target audience.

This metric is much more powerful than comparing follower numbers because it measures active discussion. A competitor might have double your followers, but if your brand is mentioned more often in authentic conversations, you're likely making a much bigger impact. SOV tells you who is truly dominating the narrative.

Why Does Measuring SOV Matter?

Tracking your SOV isn't just an academic exercise, it provides actionable intelligence that can shape your entire social media strategy. Here’s why it’s so valuable:

• Better Competitive Benchmarking: It moves you beyond simplistic follower leaderboards and shows you who is actually commanding attention. You can see who customers are talking about most, which is a leading indicator of market share.
• Meaningful Campaign Measurement: Did your latest product launch or brand campaign actually make a dent? A spike in your SOV is a clear sign that you cut through the noise and got people talking.
• Shows You What's Working: By analyzing the conversations contributing to your SOV, you can identify which content formats, topics, and platforms are driving the most discussion. It helps answer the question, "what content should we create more of?"
• Reveals Customer and Competitor Insights: Diving into your competitors' mentions can uncover their customers' pain points, highlight features they love, or even reveal weaknesses in their strategy that you can capitalize on.

How to Calculate Your Social Share of Voice: A Step-by-Step Guide

Calculating your share of voice can seem intimidating, but the process is straightforward. Whether you do it manually with a spreadsheet or use specialized software, a few core principles apply.

Step 1: Define Your Competitors and Choose Your Keywords

You can't measure your slice of the pie without defining the pie itself. Start by identifying 3-5 of your most direct competitors. Trying to track everyone will make the process overwhelming.

Next, define the keywords and phrases you'll track for each brand. Think beyond just the brand name. Include:

• Brand Name: e.g., "Starbucks"
• Social Media Handles: e.g., "@Starbucks"
• Product Names: e.g., "Pumpkin Spice Latte," "Frappuccino"
• Branded Hashtags: e.g., "#StarbucksRewards"
• Common Misspellings or Slang: Don't overlook how people actually talk online!

Organize this in a simple list. This becomes your data collection brief.

Step 2: Choose Your Timeframe and Channels

You need to be consistent. Decide if you're going to measure SOV weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Monthly is often a good starting point as it’s frequent enough to spot trends but long enough to smooth out minor daily fluctuations.

Also, decide which platforms you'll measure. Are you only interested in Instagram and TikTok, or do you need to include X (Twitter), Facebook, and LinkedIn? Being specific keeps your calculation focused and your data clean.

Step 3: Collect the Data

This is where you'll be gathering the raw numbers - the total mentions for your brand and for each competitor you're tracking. You have two main approaches here.

The Manual Method

For those on a tight budget, you can collect this data manually. It requires patience but is entirely possible. Here’s how:

1. Go to each social platform you've decided to track.
2. Use the native search function to look for each of your keywords (brand names, hashtags, etc.).
3. Count the number of mentions for your brand and each competitor over your chosen timeframe (e.g., the last 30 days).
4. Log all your numbers in a simple spreadsheet.

The Catch: The manual method has limitations. It's time-consuming, prone to human error, and will likely miss un-tagged mentions (e.g., someone writing "I love my new Lulu leggings" without tagging the brand). It's a decent starting place but isn't scalable in the long run.

The Automated Method

This is where social listening tools come in. Platforms like Sprout Social, Brandwatch, or Mention are built to do this heavy lifting for you. You set up trackers for your keywords, and the software automatically scours the web and social media, collecting every mention it finds.

This method is far more accurate, comprehensive, and scalable. It tracks both tagged and un-tagged mentions across thousands of sources, providing a much fuller picture of the conversation.

Step 4: Use the Share of Voice Formula

Now that you have your data, the math itself is easy. The formula for calculating share of voice is:

(Your Brand’s Total Mentions / Total Industry Mentions) x 100 = Your Share of Voice %

What are "Total Industry Mentions?" It's simple: your brand's mentions plus the total mentions of every competitor you're tracking.

A Practical Example

Let's say you run "FreshBrew," a DTC coffee brand. You decide to track your SOV for the last month against two primary competitors: "Daily Grind" and "Roast Co." After collecting your data, you find the following:

• Your brand (FreshBrew) received: 200 mentions
• Daily Grind received: 450 mentions
• Roast Co. received: 150 mentions

First, calculate the Total Industry Mentions:

200 (your mentions) + 450 (Daily Grind’s mentions) + 150 (Roast Co.'s mentions) = 800 Total Industry Mentions

Next, use the SOV formula to find your share:

(200 / 800) x 100 = 25%

Your share of voice is 25%. You can repeat the calculation for your competitors to see the full picture: Daily Grind has an SOV of 56.25% and Roast Co. has 18.75%.

Pro Tip: Set up a spreadsheet that automatically calculates these percentages for you. Simply drop in the new mention counts each month to track how your SOV changes over time.

Going Beyond the Basic Number: Adding Layers of Insight

Getting a percentage is just the first step. The real magic happens when you analyze the context behind that number. A high SOV doesn't automatically mean you're winning - what if all those mentions are from customer complaints? You need to dig a little deeper.

Add Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment assigns an emotional tone to each mention: positive, negative, or neutral. Understanding sentiment gives your SOV number critical context.

For example, you might have a 20% SOV while your top competitor has 40%. On the surface, it looks like they're winning. But if 90% of your mentions are positive and 50% of theirs are from angry customers dealing with shipping delays, your 20% is far more valuable. You are winning the battle for hearts and minds, which is often more important for long-term brand health.

Segment by Channel

Don't just calculate a single, all-encompassing SOV number. Break it down by platform. You might discover that while you're getting crushed in the conversation on X, you’re completely dominating the conversation on TikTok.

This insight immediately guides your strategy. Do you double down on your strengths on TikTok, or do you allocate resources to improve your footing on X? Analyzing channel-specific SOV helps you make more informed decisions about where to invest your time and energy.

Track SOV by Topic or Keyword

You can also calculate share of voice for specific campaign hashtags or industry keywords. Let's go back to our coffee brand example, FreshBrew. You might be losing the overall brand conversation to Daily Grind, but what if you calculated SOV specifically for the keyword phrase "ethically sourced coffee beans"?

You might find that you own 70% of *that specific conversation*. This tells you that your targeted messaging is hitting its mark and you have a clear area of authority you can leverage. You don't have to win every conversation, but you should aim to win the conversations that matter most to your brand identity.

Final Thoughts

Calculating your social Share of Voice gives you a clear and powerful map of your brand's presence in your industry's conversations. By moving beyond follower counts to instead track brand mentions against those of your competitors, you gain the clarity needed to build a smarter, more impactful social media strategy.

Once you understand your current Share of Voice, the goal is always to improve that number by consistently creating content that gets people talking and actively engaging with them. That’s why we built Postbase from the ground up to support modern social media, especially with short-form video on Reels, TikTok, and Shorts. Our platform helps you plan and schedule the content that grows your visibility, while our clean analytics and unified inbox give you a simple way to track your performance and manage all the comments and conversations that strong content generates.