Growth & strategy
Measure yourself against the competition
Volume alone flatters whoever shouts loudest. Track competitors as first-class keywords and you get the split of the conversation and the mood inside each slice, from the same feed that already watches you.
The problem
A bigger number is not the same as a bigger share
Mention counts go up when the whole category is talked about more, which makes almost any month look like progress. What decides budget and positioning is the split: whether the conversation about the problem you solve is naming you or naming somebody else, and whether the people naming you sound pleased about it. That question cannot be answered by a chart that only contains your own brand.
Your dashboard has no one else in it
You can see your own volume rise and fall, but not whether it rose because you did something or because everyone in the category did.
Comparison threads are found months late
The head-to-head review or the migration post is exactly where buyers make up their minds, and it is usually discovered long after the decision window closed.
Someone is switching and nobody notices
A competitor's price change or outage sends people looking for alternatives in public. Those posts have a short life and are easy to miss entirely.
The solution
How SoTrace solves it
- 01
Track them like you track yourself
Competitor names are keywords with the same pipeline behind them: captured, classified and summarised, so the comparison is like for like.
- 02
See the split, not the total
Share of voice is the percentage of the conversation each brand holds over the range you pick, so a loud week is visible as a shift rather than a bigger number.
- 03
Read the mood inside the share
A rising share of an angry conversation is not a win. Sentiment sits underneath every slice so the chart cannot flatter anybody.
What changes
Before and after, for the team doing the work
Without SoTrace
- Growth and category noise look identical on the chart
- Comparison threads are found after the buyer decided
- Nobody can say whether the share is a good one
With SoTrace
- Your share of the conversation, by week and by platform
- The sentiment behind each competitor's slice
- Switching intent surfaced while it is still a thought
Questions
What teams ask before they switch
- How many competitors can we track?
- Each competitor is a keyword on the brand, so the number you can watch follows your plan's keyword allowance. Share of voice compares every tracked brand across whatever date range you select.
- How is share of voice calculated?
- Every mention in the range is counted to the brand it names and weighted by reach, then expressed as a percentage of the total conversation, so a single high-reach thread moves the split more than a handful of quiet posts.
- What happens when a post mentions two brands?
- It counts for each brand it names, which is what makes comparison and review threads visible: they show up in both slices, with their own sentiment attached to each.
- Can we compare specific date ranges?
- Yes. Any range can be selected and compared with the period before it, so a launch, a price change or a competitor's outage can be measured rather than described.