Share of voice: your slice of the conversation

The basic formula is the same everywhere:

your mentions ÷ (your mentions + all competitors' mentions) × 100

What changes is what you count. Pick one channel, one set of competitors and one time window, and keep them fixed so the trend means something.

Share of voice is a rough proxy for awareness. If buyers in your category mention competitors far more than you, fewer of them will think of you when they need something. Tracking it over time shows whether your marketing is changing that.

It also has limits:

• It counts mentions, not meaning. A wave of complaints raises your share of voice.
• It misses private sharing. Recommendations in chats and DMs never show up. See dark social.
• It ignores buyers who don't name anyone. Many people describe their problem without naming a single brand.

For sales, that last one is the biggest gap. The buyers most open to you are often the ones asking "is there a tool that does X?" without naming a brand.

Sample sentences, scored 0 to 100 for buying intent the way HearBuyers scores posts. Only the first two count toward share of voice:

• Sample, score 22. "Tool A's conference was great this year." It mentions a competitor, but nobody here is buying.
• Sample, score 85. "Leaving Tool A. What else handles approvals for a 10-person team?" A competitor mention from someone who is also a buyer.
• Sample, score 90. "Is there anything that routes invoice approvals to the right manager automatically?" No brand at all, yet this is the strongest buyer of the three.

• Treating share of voice as a sales metric. It measures attention. It doesn't measure demand.
• Changing the competitor set. Add or drop a competitor and the number moves for no real reason.
• Ignoring sentiment. Pair it with sentiment analysis so complaints don't look like wins.
• Counting only brand names. Watch for the problem too, or you'll miss unbranded buyers.

• Competitive intelligence: the wider practice share of voice belongs to.
• Social listening: where mention counts come from.
• Dark social: the sharing share of voice can't see.

If you want to catch buyers leaving a competitor and not just count them, set up competitor monitoring for the names in your set.