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
<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" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"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-research-assessment/",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/twitter-mentions-concept",
"sameAs": [
"X mentions",
"Tweet mentions"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
