Machine Intelligence in Clinical Neuroscience (MICN) Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Neurosurgery, The Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust, London, UK.
Acta Neurochir (Wien). 2023 Dec;165(12):3573-3581. doi: 10.1007/s00701-023-05829-7. Epub 2023 Oct 16.
Social media (SoMe) use, in all of its forms, has seen massively increased throughout the past two decades, including academic publishing. Many journals have established a SoMe presence, yet the influence of promotion of scientific publications on their visibility and impact remains poorly studied. The European Journal of Neurosurgery «Acta Neurochirurgica» has established its SoMe presence in form of a Twitter account that regularly promotes its publications. We aim to analyze the impact of this initial SoMe campaign on various alternative metrics (altmetrics).
A retrospective analysis of all articles published in the journal Acta Neurochirurgica between May 1st, 2018, and April 30th, 2020, was performed. These articles were divided into a historical control group - containing the articles published between May 1st, 2018, and April 30th, 2019, when the SoMe campaign was not yet established - and into an intervention group. Several altmetrics were analyzed, along with website visits and PDF downloads per month.
In total, 784 articles published during the study period, 128 (16.3%) were promoted via Twitter. During the promotion period, 29.7% of published articles were promoted. Overall, the published articles reached a mean of 31.3 ± 50.5 website visits and 17.5 ± 31.25 PDF downloads per month. Comparing the two study periods, no statistically significant differences in website visits (26.91 ± 32.87 vs. 34.90 ± 61.08, p = 0.189) and PDF downloads (17.52 ± 31.25 vs. 15.33 ± 16.07, p = 0.276) were detected. However, overall compared to non-promoted articles, promoted articles were visited (48.9 ± 95.0 vs. 29.0 ± 37.0, p = 0.005) and downloaded significantly more (25.7 ± 66.7 vs. 16.6 ± 18.0, p = 0.045) when compared to those who were not promoted during the promotion period.
We report a 1-year initial experience with promotion of a general neurosurgical journal on Twitter. Our data suggest a clear benefit of promotion on article site visits and article downloads, although no single responsible element could be determined in terms of altmetrics. The impact of SoMe promotion on other metrics, including traditional bibliometrics such as citations and journal impact factor, remains to be determined.
社交媒体（SoMe）的使用形式在过去二十年中大幅增加，包括学术出版。许多期刊都建立了社交媒体平台，但推广科学出版物对其可见度和影响力的影响仍未得到充分研究。《欧洲神经外科学杂志》（European Journal of Neurosurgery）以其名为“Acta Neurochirurgica”的 Twitter 账户形式建立了社交媒体平台，定期宣传其出版物。我们旨在分析这一初始社交媒体活动对各种替代指标（altmetrics）的影响。
对 2018 年 5 月 1 日至 2020 年 4 月 30 日期间发表在《神经外科学杂志》（Acta Neurochirurgica）上的所有文章进行回顾性分析。这些文章分为历史对照组（包含 2018 年 5 月 1 日至 2019 年 4 月 30 日期间发表的文章，当时尚未开展社交媒体活动）和干预组。分析了几种替代指标，以及每月的网站访问量和 PDF 下载量。
在研究期间共发表了 784 篇文章，其中 128 篇（16.3%）通过 Twitter 进行了推广。在推广期间，有 29.7%的已发表文章被推广。总体而言，已发表文章的每月平均网站访问量为 31.3 ± 50.5 次，PDF 下载量为 17.5 ± 31.25 次。比较两个研究期间，网站访问量（26.91 ± 32.87 与 34.90 ± 61.08，p = 0.189）和 PDF 下载量（17.52 ± 31.25 与 15.33 ± 16.07，p = 0.276）均无统计学差异。然而，与未推广的文章相比，推广后的文章的访问量（48.9 ± 95.0 与 29.0 ± 37.0，p = 0.005）和下载量（25.7 ± 66.7 与 16.6 ± 18.0，p = 0.045）明显更高，尤其是在推广期间。
我们报告了一项为期 1 年的在 Twitter 上推广一般神经外科学杂志的初步经验。我们的数据表明，推广对文章网站访问量和文章下载量有明显的益处，尽管在替代指标方面无法确定单一的责任因素。社交媒体推广对其他指标的影响，包括引文和期刊影响因子等传统文献计量学指标，仍有待确定。
