Twitter Mentions Do Not Necessarily Increase Citations

Two studies on tweets and citations

Social media platforms such as Twitter have become an important part of academic communication. But does a paper that receives many Twitter mentions also receive more citations? Two studies offer relevant findings.

The first study is “Controlled experiment finds no detectable citation bump from Twitter promotion” by Trevor A. Branch, Isabelle M. Côté, Solomon R. David, Joshua A. Drew, Michelle LaRue, Melissa C. Márquez, E. C. M. Parsons, D. Rabaiotti, David Shiffman, David A. Steen, and Alexander L. Wild (2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292201

The second is “Tweeting biomedicine: an analysis of tweets and citations in the biomedical literature” by Stefanie Haustein, Isabella Peters, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Mike Thelwall, and Vincent Larivière (2013). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23101

More downloads, but no statistically significant citation increase

Branch and colleagues examined the relationship between Twitter mentions and citations over three years across 11 biomedical journals. Papers that were widely mentioned on Twitter received 2.6 to 3.9 times as many downloads as papers that were not. However, the increase in citations was not statistically significant.

In other words, frequent Twitter mentions did not necessarily translate into more citations. Twitter activity was instead strongly associated with alternative indicators, including Altmetric scores.

Twitter popularity and citation counts show a weak relationship

Haustein and colleagues reached a similar conclusion. Their analysis of 1.4 million papers indexed in PubMed and Web of Science found that only 9.4% had been mentioned on Twitter. The correlation between Twitter popularity and citation counts was also low.

The topics of the most frequently mentioned papers were particularly interesting. Many concerned amusing or unusual subjects, issues with direct health implications, or major accidents. It appeared that relatively few were shared primarily because of their academic value.

A different form of academic dissemination

Both studies suggest that the spread of academic papers on Twitter operates differently from traditional citation-based evaluation. It is still difficult to draw definitive conclusions, because Twitter use remains limited and academic activity on the platform is not yet fully understood.

Nevertheless, Twitter appears to have a different potential for the public dissemination and social influence of research. Twitter metrics should therefore be viewed not as replacements for citation metrics, but as complementary measures. Their role in academic communication requires further study.

What this means for researchers

Popularity on Twitter does not guarantee research quality. At the same time, communication through social media should not simply be ignored. Researchers can engage with the public online and increase the social impact of their work, while continuing to focus fundamentally on improving the quality of the research itself.

Twitter is a channel for communication, not the research itself. The opportunities and challenges of academic communication in the Twitter era are worth considering.