Twitter Promotion Is Associated With Higher Citation Rates of Articles

Apr 18, 2022
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Authors:
Ladeiras-Lopes R, Vidal-Perez R, Santos-Ferreira D, et al.
Citation:
Twitter Promotion Is Associated With Higher Citation Rates of Cardiovascular Articles: The ESC Journals Randomized Study. Eur Heart J 2022;Apr 7:[Epub ahead of print].
Summary By:
Debabrata Mukherjee, MD, FACC

Quick Takes

  • An active Twitter promotion strategy was associated with an increased number of scientific citations after a median of 2.7 years as assessed by online attention (Altmetric Score), and scientific impact (number of citations).
  • Although, the effect size found was small, these data emphasize the scientific impact of actively tweeting a paper.
  • Twitter may represent a functional and worthwhile channel to disseminate science and boost medical education.

Study Questions:

What is the association between the dissemination of scientific articles on Twitter and online visibility, as assessed by the Altmetric Attention Score and citations?

Methods:

The study investigators randomized 695 papers published in the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Journal Family (March 2018–May 2019) for promotion on Twitter or to a control arm (with no active tweeting from ESC channels) and aimed to assess whether Twitter promotion was associated with an increase in citation rates (primary endpoint) and of the Altmetric score. The authors report the final analysis including 694 articles (one paper excluded due to retraction). Poisson regression was used, including the number of citations as the dependent variable and one independent variable (randomization arm). The Altmetric Attention Score and number of tweeting users were base-2 logarithmically transformed before inclusion as independent variables in the Poisson regression analysis.

Results:

After a median follow-up of 994 days (interquartile range, 936-1,063 days), Twitter promotion of articles was associated with a 1.12 (95% confidence interval: 1.08-1.15) higher rate of citations, and this effect was independent of the type of article. Altmetric Attention Score and number of users tweeting were positive predictors for the number of citations.

Conclusions:

The authors concluded that a social media strategy of Twitter promotion for cardiovascular medicine papers seems to be associated with increased online visibility and higher numbers of citations.

Perspective:

This study reports that an active Twitter promotion strategy was associated with an increased number of scientific citations after a median of 2.7 years, as assessed by online attention (Altmetric score), and scientific impact (number of citations). Although the effect size found was small, these data emphasize the scientific impact of actively tweeting a paper. It appears that Twitter is not only one more channel for disseminating scientific updates used by most top-ranked cardiovascular journals, but it also positively, albeit modestly, impacts academic citations and may represent a functional and worthwhile channel to disseminate science and boost medical education.

Clinical Topics: Prevention

Keywords: Education, Medical, Journal Impact Factor, Primary Prevention, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Social Media, Vascular Diseases


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