Share of voice
Also called: SOV, share of conversation, AI share of voice, mention share
Definition
Share of voice is your brand's portion of all the attention in a market, measured as your mentions, citations or ad presence divided by the total for you and your competitors. Today it is often measured in AI answers and community discussions.
Share of voice (SOV) measures how much of the conversation in your category is about you. It started as an advertising metric (your ad spend or impressions versus competitors'). Now it is applied to search rankings, social mentions and AI answers.
How it works
The formula is the same everywhere; what changes is what you count:
SOV = your mentions / total mentions of all tracked brands (including yours) x 100
Peec AI's documentation uses this definition for AI answers, with an example: your brand is mentioned 4 times across 10 chats, a competitor 12 times. SOV = 4 / (4 + 12) x 100 = 25%. In the same example your visibility, the share of chats that mention you, is 4 out of 10, or 40%. Visibility is absolute; SOV is relative to the competitors you choose to track.
Platforms have started publishing a version for their own surfaces. Bing Webmaster Tools added Citation Share in June 2026: for a given grounding query, the share of all citations that go to your domain. Bing describes it as an observational metric, not a ranking or competitor scoreboard.
Worked example on Reddit
You track every Reddit thread from the past year asking for a recommendation in your category, 50 threads in total. Across them you count brand mentions:
- Your brand: 12
- Competitor A: 30
- Competitor B: 18
Your Reddit SOV = 12 / (12 + 30 + 18) x 100 = 20%. Competitor A holds 50%.
Then check which of those threads rank on Google or get cited in AI answers. If Competitor A dominates the five threads that get cited most, its real advantage is bigger than 50% suggests.
Why it matters for marketers
SOV shows your position relative to the alternatives a buyer is weighing, which raw mention counts cannot. In AI search the shortlist is literally the brands an answer names, so your share of those names is close to your share of the shortlist. Tracking SOV over time shows whether your work is moving the market's attention or just keeping pace.
How it plays out on Reddit
Reddit is the most-cited domain in AI search across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews (Peec AI, US data, March 2026). So your share of voice in Reddit recommendation threads feeds your share of voice in AI answers. BoomReddit tracks competitor mentions on Reddit and flags threads that rank on Google or get cited in AI answers, which covers the counting side of this.
Moving the number honestly means showing up in threads where your product genuinely fits, with useful, disclosed replies. Inflating it with fake accounts is astroturfing and gets removed.
Common mistakes
- Changing the competitor set. SOV depends on who you track. Keep the list stable or the trend is meaningless.
- Counting mentions without sentiment. Thirty complaints are a share of voice nobody wants. Pair it with sentiment analysis.
- One snapshot. AI answers and threads change. Measure monthly.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate share of voice?
Divide your brand's mentions by the total mentions of all tracked brands, including yours, and multiply by 100.
What is the difference between share of voice and visibility?
Visibility is how often you appear at all, for example in 4 of 10 AI answers. Share of voice compares your mentions with competitors' mentions.
What is a good share of voice?
It depends on how many competitors you track and how crowded the market is. Watch the trend against the same competitor set over time.