• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 22, 2014

Consumer engagement with big brands across the major social media channels fell precipitously on Tuesday after beginning the week on a high note, according to a new index being launched today by MediaPost's Social Media & Marketing Daily, ListenFirst Media and Redbooks.

Called the Digital Engagement Index, it is a composite utilizing ListenFirst’s  digital engagement ratings across the top 500 brands as defined by Redbooks. The ratings are based on the daily “engagements” -- owned, earned and organic consumer behavior -- across major social media channels including Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube.

The goal of the index is to put some perspective on the overall marketplace of paid, owned and earned media for major brands, and for the performance of individual brands within that. As part of the index, we will also report on the top 10 brand performers, according to ListenFirst’s ratings.

On Tuesday, for example, Beats by Dr. Dre was far and away the most dominant brand across the digital media channels being tracked, generating more than three times the volume of digital engagement as the next best performing brand, Coca-Cola. Beats, however, was down markedly from the prior day, as were all brands in the top 10 list, except for two that are trending up: Red Bull and ExxonMobil.

"Despite a daily decrease, Beats by Dr. Dre took the top spot on the leaderboard for the second day in a row, thanks to the new 'Re-Established' commercial with Lebron James,” noted ListenFirst analyst Michael Robinson, adding that the the commercial has already generated nearly 8 million views since being posted online on Saturday.

Interestingly, this week’s index is trending contrary to the trend in recent weeks, in which Saturday has been spiking as the highest day of the week in terms of overall digital engagement.

“Marketers have recently begun to focus on the science of timing their posts and content to reach and engage as many people as possible, whether it it trying to catch people on their morning commute, at their lunch hour, etc.,” ListenFirst’s Robinson explains, noting that as a rule Saturdays have been trending more than 20% higher than any other day of the week in terms of the total number of digital engagements generated.

“ Many marketers will also agree that scheduling content to be posted on the weekends is also an effective strategy to drive engagement,” Robinson noted.