Scholarly work gets created, shared, and discussed in a number of ways. While your work may be published and disseminated via journals, which can be measured by citation and journal metrics, your work will also be reached and discussed on social media.
Social media altmetrics measure mentions, tweets, downloads, comments, shares, and use of scholarly work in non-academic discussion forums. These measures can complement traditional metrics to assist in determining your scholarly impact, frequently offering qualitative and contextual uses of your work alongside quantitative measures.
Each social media platform, whether it is used to share presentations, citations, research data, articles, etc. should have altmetric measures attached to it. These could be in the form of downloads, views, hits, shares, saves, etc. Always use these measures with some caution, considering whether they are reliable and whether they truly complement a positive demonstration of your impact.
Benefits to tracking your social media response
- Demonstrate valuable non-academic engagement and societal value
- Provide evidence in your applications for promotion or tenure
- Understand and join the public conversation
- See where there is research interest and where there are gaps
- Discover non-traditional research outputs
More information about Altmetrics is available from the library guide Altmetrics.
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