Should You (or your journal) be Tweeting about Your Research? a Quantitative Analysis

Social media use is ideal for communicating science to the public, but does it improve exposure of primary research enough to increase traditional measures of research quality? We analyzed (a) before-and-after effects of journal-specific Twitter promotion on impact factor, and (b) the effect of social media activity on Google Scholar citation rates. A varying coefficients model revealed no effect of Twitter use on impact factor for a subset of 41 ecology journals. A generalized linear mixed model (741 primary research articles) accounting for journal identity (n=11), five-year impact factor, and time since publication revealed significant positive effects of several measures of social media activity. However, the standardized effect size of the strongest social media effect was only 65% and 35% of the effects of impact factor and time since publication, respectively. This study suggests that journals as single entities on Twitter may have little impact on citations rates. However, activity from the collective Twitter community can influence the number of times primary ecological research will be cited. In addition to producing interesting research in impactful journals, ecologists may benefit from cultivating a strong social media presence for communicating their research.