Social media presence of otolaryngology journals: The past, present, and future

Objectives/Hypothesis: Evaluate the use of Twitter by otolaryngology journals and determine the relationship between social media altmetrics and measures of academic impact. Study Design: Cross-sectional analysis. Methods: Twitter profiles from the top 50 otolaryngology journals per 2016 SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) were included. Twitter activity for each profile was calculated using Twitonomy analytics and Riffle software. Social media influence was measured using Klout scores. Annual SJR rank and H-Index scores between 2008 and 2016 were recorded for each journal. Associations between social media influence and academic indices were assessed using Wilcoxon rank sum test, Spearman's rank order test, and Pearson correlation coefficients (α =.05). Results: Average SJR was 0.86 ± 0.3 and H-Index was 50.9 ± 24. Eighteen journals had Twitter profiles. Journals with social media accounts had significantly higher SJR (P =.03) and H-Index (P =.01) scores compared to those without. The average Klout score of Twitter profiles was 32.5 ± 13. There was a significant association between a journal's Klout score and SJR rank (P =.004). Older Twitter profiles had higher Klout scores (P =.04). There was a direct relationship between a journal's total Twitter followers and H-Index score (P =.009), and a direct relationship between tweets and academic influence (P =.03 and.01 for SJR and H-Index, respectively). Conclusions: Social media is often underutilized and remains an untapped resource by many journals to increase readership and disseminate research. Journals with social media profiles had significantly higher academic metrics, and among journals with profiles, increased online activity was a predictor for academic influence. Future studies are warranted to elucidate causal relationships. Level of Evidence: NA. Laryngoscope, 128:363–368, 2018.