Twitter mentions were among the earliest and most-cited altmetric signals because of the platform's open API and timely propagation patterns: scholarly attention on Twitter often appears within days of publication, in contrast to citation lags of years. Methodological cautions are substantial: mentions can be automated or coordinated; coverage is biased toward English-language and certain disciplines; demographic and geographic representation is uneven; and as of 2023 API restrictions and platform changes have degraded data availability. Altmetric providers continue to collect signals under the 'X' branding, but historical comparability is now imperfect.
References
- Haustein S, Costas R, Larivière V 'Characterizing social media metrics of scholarly papers' PLOS ONE 2015. Altmetric.com documentation.