Media Logic Launches Its Retail Social Juice Index (and I Find an Addictive New Distraction at Work)

It’s that time of year again …

When the living room becomes the war room, cluttered with the torn-through flyers of retailers hoping to entice you with Black Friday offerings. Laptop screens flicker, displaying new, NEVER-THIS-LOW deals for Cyber Monday’s upcoming online rush.

There’s no denying the importance the fourth quarter to retailers – the “final push” to a profitable fiscal year.

Just in time for this kickoff to the holiday shopping season, Media Logic introduces the Retail Social Juice Index (RSJI) — a revolutionary new tool optimized for retailers seeking a simple metric of the level of social engagement between themselves and their customers.

The RSJI measures social engagement for more than 500 top retailers across multiple interactions on Facebook and Twitter, and then distills the data into a single useful number.

Anyone can log in free at any time to view the day’s biggest social media winners and losers. They can track up to five brands that are of the most interest to them, and track their own performance against their competitors, their retail sector average and against the daily average of all scored brands.

Now, I’m a words person … mathematical calculations and I don’t exactly have the best relationship. So I may not take advantage of all the RSJI’s various data analysis tools. None the less, I’m having a blast using the RSJI to pit my favorite brands against each other. Next up? Sears and Amazon — an all-out showdown between a major brick-and-mortar retail chain and an online powerhouse. Goosebumps, I tell ya. Goosebumps.

And I’m not the only one who’s excited. The RSJI just launched today and Forbes.com is already heralding its undeniable usefulness: “[The RSJI] enables retailers to quickly spot trends, new best practices, promotions and other techniques that effectively drive buyer engagement.”

Here’s the bottom line: While fun to play with, Media Logic’s Social Juice Index is intended to do some serious work. The wide adoption of better social business practices promise a future not only of better deals and richer promotions, but dare I say deeper and more meaningful relationships between me and the brands competing for my valuable dollars and my more valuable recommendations.

Tags: Forbes, Media Logic, retail, RSJI, social engagement, Social Juice Index, social media as marketing tool