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How to Get More Share of Voice on Social Media

How to Get More Share of Voice on Social Media

As a business owner, you may have noticed that your target audience is talking more about your competitors than your brand. Understanding the competitive landscape your company is a part of and where you rank amongst competitors for share of voice can unlock mountains of valuable data to help inform your social media marketing strategy.

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What is Share of Voice in Social Media Marketing?

Share of voice (SOV) is the percentage your brand makes up in the conversation within your industry compared to your competitors. In other words, how often are people mentioning your brand on social media compared to competitors? 

Remember that share of voice is not limited to social media marketing but can also be used for paid advertising, PR, and organic search engine result pages (SERPs).

 

Why Is Share of Voice Important on Social Media?

Social media is our era’s town square, where consumers go to discuss their favorite and least favorite brands and related experiences. If no one talks about you, no one will hear of you.

How to Get More Share of Voice on Social Media man and woman on phones with graphics of likes and hearts around them

What Can Share of Voice Tell You?

SOV can help you find the holes in your marketing strategies and pinpoint the right channels and customer demographics. 

You should also review your SOV historically as it helps set up brand and competitor benchmarks, providing context when reporting on current campaigns, or can be used as one of many data points to build a powerful model for predictive insights. By comparing SOV data year or year (Y/Y), quarter over quarter (Q/Q), or even month over month (M/M),  you can see how your social strategies are working over time. 

 

Questions to ask yourself when looking at Share of Voice:

  • What channels are driving the most mentions?
  • What type of content (photos, videos, blogs, etc.) has the most engagement?
  • What types of conversations are consumers having?
  • What keywords are consumers and competitors using?
  • What types of campaign initiatives did competitors implement? (Influencer campaigns, sponsoring live events, entering the Metaverse)
  • That is the sentiment (positive or negative) associated with the mentions? (Remember: not all mentions are good mentions. Gone are the days of “all press is good press”. It’s important to learn from your competitors’ losses as well as their wins.)

 

Let’s Look at an Example of a Share of Voice Analysis:

Let’s say you run a French-inspired bakery called A Taste of Paris. After running a competitive analysis, you learn that your brand only makes up 21.8% of the conversation within your competitor set.  

How to Get More Share of Voice on Social Media example of pie chart break down of sov in competitor set

 

At a surface-level glance, you can see that A Taste of Paris ranked 3rd in share of voice. Now, it’s time to take a deep dive into why. 

Using a combination of software tools and trained data analysts, you can uncover what your competitors are doing right and what they’re doing wrong. 

 

Creating a Strategy to Increase your Share of Voice on Social Media 

Continuing with our bakery example, it’s time to create your strategy now that you’ve done your competitive analysis research and answered the above questions. 

For example, it’s discovered Bread Binge using specific keywords in their TikTok copy to tap into TikTok’s local search capabilities, targeting Gen Z consumers who are switching from Google search to social search

It’s also discovered that Mom’s Bakery partnered with a Pinterest food influencer, a platform A Taste of Paris isn’t active on, to raise money for a breast cancer research charity during Breast Cancer Awareness month. 

Actionable insights A Taste of Paris could learn from this are:

  • Research the keywords the competitors are using to drive traffic 
  • Consider implementing an influencer marketing program 
  • Picking a charitable cause to endorse 
  • Exploring other social media platforms

On the other hand, Mr. Sugarcakes is only posting social media holiday-related posts, such as a Spice Rum Cake for National Rum Day or rainbow cupcakes for Pride Month. While this may get high engagement short-term, trend-chasing without showcasing what Mr. Sugarcakes offers might not work for your market. 

How to Get More Share of Voice on Social Media business workers around table breaking down pie charts

 

While the obvious answers for ways to increase share of voice are:

  • Creating good, consistent content
  • Tapping into the right keywords 
  • Offering consumers educational or entertaining content 
  • Implement partnerships with other brands, influencers, and establishments 
  • Finding where your target audience is talking 
  • Focusing on earned media over paid media 

There is no one size fits all approach to increasing your share of voice. Your strategy will depend on your industry, target demographics, and business goals. 

 

What Share of Voice Won’t Tell You

The goal of advertising is to move consumers to purchase your product or service. Therefore, having a high share of voice can lead to increased awareness, which ultimately can lead to increased sales and market share.

Share of voice is a great metric to track even if your brand runs a ton of paid media; however, there are other items to focus on as well. Are you targeting the right audience, what time of day works best for ad performance/conversion, and is your brand on the right social channels for your target audience?

After all, having a high share of voice may indicate that you’re dedicating a larger amount of money devoted to advertising versus competitors, which is a lovely insight. But it won’t measure how relevant your marketing is to your target audience. We love running competitive analyses and helping brands to elevate their marketing strategies. If you need help with your competitive analysis or creating your 2023 social strategy, book a call with B3.  We love to help! 

 

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