Where does the notion of share of voice come from?
Share of voice comes from advertising. It originally referred to an advertiser's share of advertising spend in a medium or market (Définitions Marketing). The notion then spread to the press, social media, search, and now AI answers.
The principle stays the same: you do not measure absolute visibility, but visibility compared with direct competitors.
How do you calculate media share of voice?
First, choose a panel of 3 to 5 direct competitors and a period (a month, a quarter). Then count each brand's coverage over that period. Share of voice is the brand's number of articles divided by the panel total, multiplied by 100.
Example: over a quarter, your startup gets 12 articles and your three competitors get 8, 10 and 10. The total is 40, so your share of voice is 30%. To refine it, you can weight each article by the outlet's audience or exclude plain press-release reprints.
Why share of voice speaks to leadership teams
Share of voice answers a simple question: are people talking about us more than about our competitors? It neutralises seasonal and news effects, which hit every brand at the same time. Onclusive presents it as a leading indicator of market share (October 2025): brands that take up more media space tend to gain market share.
Share of voice in AI answers
The same calculation applies to AI: you count each brand's mentions in the answers to a panel of questions. On the 19 questions Linker tracks (using Peec AI), its share of voice was 30.6% at the end of September 2026, against 14.6% for the next competitor. In AI answers, share of voice depends heavily on the brand's presence in third-party sources.
To go further
Share of voice is read alongside other metrics: PR reporting, advertising value equivalency and AI visibility. For a full method: how to measure the ROI of a media strategy.
Last updated: October 2026
