An altmetric signal counting public posts on Twitter (rebranded to X in 2023) that include a link or identifier referring to a specific research output.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
An impact case study uses Twitter mentions as evidence of policy-stakeholder attention.
Is an instance
A research-communications team tracks Twitter mentions of preprints to time press engagement.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
Awarding internal recognition based solely on Twitter mention volume.
Not an instance
Comparing Twitter mention counts across languages without representativeness analysis.

Editorial commentary

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.

Also known as

X mentions · Tweet mentions

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Twitter mentions (concept)"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/twitter-mentions-concept" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/twitter-mentions-concept",
  "name": "Twitter mentions (concept)",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/twitter-mentions-concept",
  "description": "An altmetric signal counting public posts on Twitter (rebranded to X in 2023) that include a link or identifier referring to a specific research output.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/responsible-assessment#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/twitter-mentions-concept",
  "sameAs": [
    "X mentions",
    "Tweet mentions"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:22:55",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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