Tag Archives: b2b

Share of Voice: Why it Matters and How Your Business Can Stand Out

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As we continue to navigate a fluid economic reality, many business leaders are on an ongoing mission to cut costs and justify spending. Endeavors that are immeasurable are frequently the first to go.

Public relations can easily fall into this category. Marketing can too, but the reality is there is no direct, measurable, line from PR to sales. But before company leaders label PR efforts as unquantifiable, they should look to the following data point, which can confirm their message is getting in front of the right audience thanks to their PR and marketing efforts: Share of Voice (SOV).

SOV allows companies to measure their brand awareness, health and visibility against industry competitors. It can be viewed as a measure of potential awareness by your target audience of your business and its branding. SOV is a trackable metric that demonstrates where your business stands among competitors in a given period of time. It can also demonstrate the PR and marketing tactics or messages that were most successful in raising awareness for your brand.  

At the same time, SOV can also provide insight into the most successful PR and marketing tactics of your competitors, giving you an even better idea of what might work for your audience. Further, SOV can point out any potential disconnect between what competitors are talking about and where your business chooses to focus its messaging.

Getting to Know Your Numbers

Calculating the metric is not rocket science. It requires aggregating your company’s media mentions and gathering data on industry competitors and their media mentions from the same points in time. Ideally, you’ll want to measure your SOV and that of your key competitors to get a benchmark before launching a PR campaign. Then, measure again during and after the campaign, to see how your company’s SOV has fared against your competitors.

The results can be eye-opening. We have found our clients see tremendous value in the metric – value they can bring before their board, investors and leadership team to pair with the organization’s overall efforts to achieve critical goals.

For example, at the end of 2022, a global insurtech company reached out to our agency looking to build SOV in the American insurance media market. At the time, they only had a 9.1% SOV and were struggling to breakthrough. Our team studied the approach of their competitors and developed a new, non-promotional PR approach focused on the dynamic personalities and interests of the co-founders and the state of the insurtech and insurance industries more broadly. This approach had a knock-on effect of demonstrating the company had its finger on the pulse of its core audience and their needs.

By avoiding outdated industry topics and blatant self-promotion, focusing on current trends and educating insurtech customers, we were able to secure dozens of media interviews and contributed articles for the company. By the third quarter of 2023 – just 9 months into our engagement – the company had established itself as the dominant voice among its competitors in the insurance media, with an SOV of 77.8%. This growth has corresponded with increased sales numbers and inbound product inquiries.

SOV is a powerful metric.  It can demonstrate the value of a strong, consistent and coordinated public relations campaign in partnership with good marketing. While there still is no direct line from PR to sales, a considerable uptick in SOV demonstrates your message is being broadcast, and if done correctly, it is broadcast to the audience most in need of receiving that message. As year-end planning begins, consider incorporating this metric into your 2025 planning to help make your company the top voice among your competitors.

When to Hop Off the Facebook Bandwagon

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Jump Off

via Flickr user psmithy

In my internal life as a secret pundit, I hold strong, unpopular opinions on a wide range of topics. I’ll spare you my monologue on the proper storage of tomatoes, but let’s discuss my wildly unfashionable opinions on Facebook, which are probably more relevant to your interests.

Here’s a radical thought: Facebook doesn’t work that well for some brands, particularly small B2B service providers. Yes, that Facebook—the stuff of marketing mavens’ dreams. For many, it turns into a marketing nightmare; after devoting time and energy to creating and curating a brand page, a chorus of crickets greets you instead of legions of grateful fans.

Many self-proclaimed social media experts will suggest that you are doing it wrong. That is true in some cases, but not all. If Facebook isn’t working for you, I think there are a few reasons it is more than okay to stop using your brand page.

It’s cost prohibitive

Contrary to popular belief, using Facebook as a PR and marketing tool is far from free. It is time-intensive, no matter what strategies and tools you use. It’s cliche but true: at work, time is money.

To get the most out of a Facebook brand page, you should spend time and money not only perusing and posting, but also creating videos and custom visual content like infographics, memes and quality photos. Last time I checked, graphic designers don’t work for free. Plus, paid ads, contests and promoted posts are often the only way to get any semblance of a noticeable boost in fans and engagement. This could be time and money well-spent, but not if you don’t see results.

Your content never meets its mark    

When I say engagement, I’m not speaking in abstract jargon. What I mean is people seeing, liking, commenting beneath and clicking thru to your content. On Twitter, engagement defined this way is possible any time someone logs on and scrolls through their feed. On Facebook, what someone sees on their News Feed depends on a number of factors analyzed by the company’s EdgeRank algorithm, which you can read more about here.

From a personal user’s perspective, there are advantages to EdgeRank and otherwise being in control of your News Feed. For example, with a few clicks, you can hide future posts from your Facebook-addicted auntie and never again be subjected to her semi-literate rants on the tyranny of everyday objects.

However, the same tool may prevent a user from being exposed to your brand’s content, even if s/he would like to see it—which s/he presumably does, since s/he “likes” you. Users rarely return to a brand’s Facebook page after they have liked it, so they won’t see your pithy posts there. And if you don’t share a photo, it is unlikely that they will see a post in their News Feed. As many have lamented, EdgeRank prefers gimics over content that is relevant to your audience. If you provide B2B services, or something that is equally ill-matched to meme-ing or Harlem Shaking, you just may never stand out.

There are other options    

Should you want to stand out on Facebook? This question nags me. For companies that provide consumer products or entertainment, the Facebook News Feed is a natural fit. You want to be (and often are) an integral part of your customers’ personal lives, so you fit in snugly between a cousin’s baby pictures and political rants from college friends.

For most other kind of brand, the Facebook News Feed is an awkward fit, like trying to wear the clothes you thought were cool at age 15. No one thinks you look cool in those JNCOs, and no one wants to hear about some esoteric corporate service while they are perusing their iPad on the couch.

In the wide world of digital marketing and PR, there exist many more agreeable options. If you are struggling with Facebook and don’t even enjoy the medium, maybe it’s time to redirect your efforts elsewhere. Perhaps your time and energy could be better spent on Twitter, LinkedIn or a blog. Read case studies, ask around and give a new network a try.

I’m far from the first person to suggest Facebook isn’t the social media marketing magic bullet, but I don’t think many take action in response. Has anyone out there abandoned their Facebook strategy? Tell us about it in the comments.