What is share of voice (SOV)? Definition & formula

Share of voice (SOV) is a metric that measures how much of the total conversation, visibility, or advertising in a market belongs to your brand compared with your competitors, expressed as a percentage.

Quick facts

Also known as: SOV, social share of voice
Category: Metrics & analytics
Applies to: X · Instagram · Facebook · LinkedIn · TikTok · Threads · search and paid advertising
Basic formula: your brand's mentions ÷ total mentions of all brands tracked × 100
Key trait: it is a competitive metric, only meaningful when compared with rivals

Share of voice started as an advertising term. Media buyers used it to describe what portion of total ad spend or ad exposure in a category belonged to one brand. If three soda brands bought TV spots and one of them accounted for half of all airtime, that brand had a 50% share of voice.

On social media, the idea is the same but the "voice" is conversation. Social share of voice usually counts how often each brand is mentioned, tagged, or discussed publicly during a set period, then compares those numbers. It answers a simple question: when people in your market talk, how often are they talking about you?

Choose the competitors and a time period (for example, the last 30 days).
Count mentions of each brand using the same keywords and filters.
Divide your brand's mentions by the total mentions of all tracked brands and multiply by 100.

Example: in one month, your brand gets 400 mentions, Competitor A gets 900, and Competitor B gets 700. Total mentions are 2,000, so your share of voice is 400 ÷ 2,000 × 100 = 20%.

Some teams also measure SOV by engagement or impressions instead of raw mentions, or split it into positive, negative, and neutral mentions. A high share of voice driven by a public complaint wave is not good news, so pairing SOV with sentiment gives a more honest picture. Most social media monitoring tools can support this kind of mention counting.

Share of voice is often used as a leading indicator of market share: brands that consistently own more of the conversation tend to grow awareness and consideration over time. It also shows the impact of campaigns, launches, and PR moments more clearly than follower growth alone, and it highlights when a competitor suddenly gains momentum. This walkthrough on how to analyze your competitors' Twitter accounts is a good starting point for building a competitor set.

With Circleboom's Real-time Tweet Search feature, you can run the same keyword search for your brand and for each competitor from the same start date, with the same language and content filters, so mention counts on X are collected on an equal basis. The Historical Tweet Search feature lets you measure share of voice for a past period, such as a launch month or an industry event.

To compare the accounts themselves, the X Competitor Analysis & Benchmark Report feature places your account next to up to 5 competitors across engagement, reach, posting behavior, content formats, and audience quality, and you can re-run the same set later for a new dated report. See also this guide to Twitter competitor analysis.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good share of voice? There's no universal number. A common rule of thumb in advertising is that a share of voice higher than your current market share supports growth. Track your own trend against the same competitor set.

Is share of voice the same as brand awareness? No. SOV is one way to estimate awareness in public conversation, but awareness also includes people who know your brand and never post about it.

How often should I measure SOV? Monthly is common, with extra checks around launches, campaigns, and PR events.

Related terms: What is social listening? · What is sentiment analysis? · What is a KPI? · What is newsjacking?

By Arif Akdoğan, reviewed by Altuğ Altuğ. Last updated 2026-09-30.

Sources: Circleboom, Real-time Tweet Search; Circleboom, X Competitor Analysis & Benchmark Report.