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If I tweet will you cite? The effect of social media exposure of articles on downloads and citations

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Public Health

Abstract

Objectives

We sought to investigate whether exposing scientific papers to social media (SM) has an effect on article downloads and citations.

Methods

We randomized all International Journal of Public Health (IJPH) original articles published between December 2012 and December 2014 to SM exposure (blog post, Twitter and Facebook) or no exposure at three different time points after first online publication.

Results

130 papers (SM exposure = 65, control = 65) were randomized. The number of downloads did not differ significantly between groups (p = 0.60) nor did the number of citations (p = 0.88). Adjusting for length of observation and paper’s geographical origin did not change these results. There was no difference in the number of downloads and citations between the SM exposure and control group when we stratified for open access status. The number of downloads and number of citations were significantly correlated in both groups.

Conclusions

SM exposure did not have a significant effect on traditional impact metrics, such as downloads and citations. However, other metrics may measure the added value that social media might offer to a scientific journal, such as wider dissemination.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Uta Hauptfleisch (Springer Heidelberg, Germany) for providing us with the data on downloads. We also thank Kali Tal for her editorial suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Thomy Tonia & Anke Berger

  2. Public Health and Surveillance, Scientific Institute of Public Health, Brussels, Belgium

    Herman Van Oyen

  3. Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland

    Christian Schindler & Nino Künzli

  4. University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Christian Schindler & Nino Künzli

Authors
  1. Thomy Tonia
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  2. Herman Van Oyen
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  3. Anke Berger
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  4. Christian Schindler
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  5. Nino Künzli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomy Tonia.

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All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Funding

This study received no funding.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Tonia, T., Van Oyen, H., Berger, A. et al. If I tweet will you cite? The effect of social media exposure of articles on downloads and citations. Int J Public Health 61, 513–520 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-016-0831-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-016-0831-y

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