The importance of social media to the academic surgical literature: Relationship between Twitter activity and readership metrics

Abstract

Background: Social media has an increasing role within professional surgical practice, including the publishing and engagement of academic literature. This study aims to analyze the relationship between social media use and traditional and alternative metrics among academic surgical journals. Method: Journals were identified through the InCites Journal Citation Reports 2019, and their impact factor, h-index, and CiteScore were noted. Social media platforms were examined, and Twitter activity interrogated between 1 January to 31 December 2019. Healthcare Social Graph score and an aggregated Altmetric Attention Score were also calculated for each journal. Statistical analysis was carried out to look at the correlation between traditional metrics, Twitter activity, and altmetrics. Results: Journals with a higher impact factor were more likely to use a greater number of social media platforms (R2 = 0.648; P