An Exploratory Study of Medical Journal's Twitter Use: Metadata, Networks, and Content Analyses.

Area of Science:

• Bibliometrics
• Scholarly Communication
• Social Media Analysis

Background:

• Medical journals increasingly use social media platforms like Twitter for promotion and reader engagement.
• Understanding the specific strategies and adoption patterns of medical journals on Twitter remains limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the global use of Twitter by medical journals.
• To investigate the social networks and content strategies employed by these journals on Twitter.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of Twitter profiles and metadata for all indexed medical journals.
• Examination of social network structures and content shared on Twitter.
• In-depth analysis of 2000 tweets from four prestigious journals.

Main Results:

• Journals with Twitter accounts exhibit higher publication counts and impact.
• Subscription-based journals show a slightly higher Twitter adoption rate than open access journals.
• Prestigious journals prioritize follower count and engage in targeted content strategies (e.g., public health, research promotion).

Conclusions:

• Medical journals employ diverse Twitter strategies, influencing their reach and impact.
• Findings offer insights for publishers, journals, and researchers to optimize Twitter utilization.
• The study highlights the role of Twitter in scholarly communication and public health outreach.