↓ Skip to main content

Tweet success? Scientific communication correlates with increased citations in Ecology and Conservation

Overview of attention for article published in PeerJ, April 2018
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (98th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
10 news outlets
blogs
8 blogs
twitter
761 X users
facebook
5 Facebook pages
video
2 YouTube creators

Citations

dimensions_citation
53 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
256 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Tweet success? Scientific communication correlates with increased citations in Ecology and Conservation
Published in
PeerJ, April 2018
DOI 10.7717/peerj.4564
Pubmed ID
Authors

Clayton T. Lamb, Sophie L. Gilbert, Adam T. Ford

Abstract

Science communication is seen as critical for the disciplines of ecology and conservation, where research products are often used to shape policy and decision making. Scientists are increasing their online media communication, via social media and news. Such media engagement has been thought to influence or predict traditional metrics of scholarship, such as citation rates. Here, we measure the association between citation rates and the Altmetric Attention Score-an indicator of the amount and reach of the attention an article has received-along with other forms of bibliometric performance (year published, journal impact factor, and article type). We found that Attention Score was positively correlated with citation rates. However, in recent years, we detected increasing media exposure did not relate to the equivalent citations as in earlier years; signalling a diminishing return on investment. Citations correlated with journal impact factors up to ∼13, but then plateaued, demonstrating that maximizing citations does not require publishing in the highest-impact journals. We conclude that ecology and conservation researchers can increase exposure of their research through social media engagement and, simultaneously, enhance their performance under traditional measures of scholarly activity.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 761 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 256 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 256 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 46 18%
Researcher 40 16%
Student > Master 33 13%
Student > Bachelor 22 9%
Student > Doctoral Student 19 7%
Other 39 15%
Unknown 57 22%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 55 21%
Environmental Science 40 16%
Social Sciences 31 12%
Computer Science 11 4%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 10 4%
Other 45 18%
Unknown 64 25%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 584. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 April 2023.
All research outputs
#40,304
of 25,593,129 outputs
Outputs from PeerJ
#61
of 15,253 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#910
of 343,881 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PeerJ
#6
of 430 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,593,129 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 15,253 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 343,881 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 430 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.