IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v17y2023i4s1751157723000792.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An exploratory study of Twitter metrics for measuring user influence

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Min
  • Zhang, Dongxin
  • Zhang, Yin
  • Yeager, Kristin
  • Fields, Taylor N.

Abstract

Influence plays a critical role in information communication, and the ubiquitous use of social media has made measuring influence on social media platforms a salient challenge. While previous studies have attempted to measure and investigate influence on Twitter, there is no consensus on its definition or relation to fundamental Twitter metrics. This study examined relationships between a composite influence measure of Twitter and fundamental social media metrics using a sample of tweets from a multi-year public campaign. Correlation analyses indicated that a user's number of followers had the strongest correlation with the composite measure. Principal components analysis was conducted for dimension reduction, and multiple regression analysis was performed using the resulting components. The findings revealed that a user's network was the most important predictor of the composite influence measure and that there was a negative relationship between campaign related activity and the composite measure. Implications of these findings are discussed. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of and future efforts in the measurement of influence on social media.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Min & Zhang, Dongxin & Zhang, Yin & Yeager, Kristin & Fields, Taylor N., 2023. "An exploratory study of Twitter metrics for measuring user influence," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:17:y:2023:i:4:s1751157723000792
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2023.101454
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157723000792
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2023.101454?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Y. T. Alfarhoud, 2017. "The Use of Twitter as a Tool to Predict Opinion Leaders that Influence Public Opinion: Case Study of the 2016 United State Presidential Election," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Daniel Gelaw Alemneh & Jeff Allen & Suliman Hawamdeh (ed.), Knowledge Discovery and Data Design Innovation Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management (ICKM 2017), chapter 10, pages 191-206, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Sergio Copiello, 2019. "Research Interest: another undisclosed (and redundant) algorithm by ResearchGate," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 351-360, July.
    3. Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2019. "ResearchGate Score, full-text research items, and full-text reads: a follow-up study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1255-1262, May.
    4. Mike McGuirk, 2021. "Performing social media analytics with Brandwatch for Classrooms: a platform review," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(4), pages 363-378, December.
    5. Adrián A Díaz-Faes & Timothy D Bowman & Rodrigo Costas, 2019. "Towards a second generation of ‘social media metrics’: Characterizing Twitter communities of attention around science," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-18, May.
    6. José María Lamirán-Palomares & Tomás Baviera & Amparo Baviera-Puig, 2020. "Sports Influencers on Twitter. Analysis and Comparative Study of Track Cycling World Cups 2016 and 2018," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-23, September.
    7. Sara Moukarzel & Anita Caduff & Martin Rehm & Miguel del Fresno & Rafael Pérez-Escamilla & Alan J. Daly, 2021. "Breastfeeding Communication Strategies, Challenges and Opportunities in the Twitter-Verse: Perspectives of Influencers and Social Network Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-13, June.
    8. Jiménez-Castillo, David & Sánchez-Fernández, Raquel, 2019. "The role of digital influencers in brand recommendation: Examining their impact on engagement, expected value and purchase intention," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 366-376.
    9. Harrigan, Paul & Daly, Timothy M. & Coussement, Kristof & Lee, Julie A. & Soutar, Geoffrey N. & Evers, Uwana, 2021. "Identifying influencers on social media," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    10. Javier Gil-Quintana & Emilio Vida de León, 2021. "Educational Influencers on Instagram: Analysis of Educational Channels, Audiences, and Economic Performance," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-21, September.
    11. Enrique Orduna-Malea & Alberto Martín-Martín & Mike Thelwall & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, 2017. "Do ResearchGate Scores create ghost academic reputations?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 443-460, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Łukasz Wiechetek & Zbigniew Pastuszak, 2022. "Academic social networks metrics: an effective indicator for university performance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1381-1401, March.
    2. Vivek Kumar Singh & Satya Swarup Srichandan & Hiran H. Lathabai, 2022. "ResearchGate and Google Scholar: how much do they differ in publications, citations and different metrics and why?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1515-1542, March.
    3. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Multi-criteria altmetric scores are likely to be redundant with respect to a subset of the underlying information," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 819-824, July.
    4. Shannon Mason & Yusuke Sakurai, 2021. "A ResearchGate-way to an international academic community?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1149-1171, February.
    5. Sergio Copiello, 2019. "Research Interest: another undisclosed (and redundant) algorithm by ResearchGate," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 351-360, July.
    6. Shannon Mason, 2020. "Adoption and usage of Academic Social Networks: a Japan case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1751-1767, March.
    7. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2449-2469, December.
    8. Yan, Weiwei & Zhang, Yin, 2018. "Research universities on the ResearchGate social networking site: An examination of institutional differences, research activity level, and social networks formed," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 385-400.
    9. Martín-Martín, Alberto & Orduna-Malea, Enrique & Delgado López-Cózar, Emilio, 2018. "Author-level metrics in the new academic profile platforms: The online behaviour of the Bibliometrics community," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 494-509.
    10. Fernandes, Teresa & Nettleship, Heather & Pinto, Luísa Helena, 2022. "Judging a book by its cover? The role of unconventional appearance on social media influencers effectiveness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2019. "ResearchGate Score, full-text research items, and full-text reads: a follow-up study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1255-1262, May.
    12. Ortega, José Luis, 2020. "Proposal of composed altmetric indicators based on prevalence and impact dimensions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    13. Juliana E. Raffaghelli & Stefania Manca, 2019. "Is There a Social Life in Open Data? The Case of Open Data Practices in Educational Technology Research," Publications, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-17, January.
    14. Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2018. "A few remarks on ResearchGate score and academic reputation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 301-306, January.
    15. Wenkai Zhou & Chi Zhang & Linwan Wu & Meghana Shashidhar, 2023. "ChatGPT and marketing: Analyzing public discourse in early Twitter posts," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(4), pages 693-706, December.
    16. Kari L. J. Goold & Reynafe N. Aniga & Peter B. Gray, 2020. "Sports under Quarantine: A Case Study of Major League Baseball in 2020," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    17. Christophe Boudry & Manuel Durand-Barthez, 2020. "Use of author identifier services (ORCID, ResearcherID) and academic social networks (Academia.edu, ResearchGate) by the researchers of the University of Caen Normandy (France): A case study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-16, September.
    18. Lepori, Benedetto & Thelwall, Michael & Hoorani, Bareerah Hafeez, 2018. "Which US and European Higher Education Institutions are visible in ResearchGate and what affects their RG score?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 806-818.
    19. Maria Cláudia Cabrini Grácio & Natalia Rodrigues Delbianco & Fábio Sampaio Rosas & Antonio Perianes-Rodríguez, 2023. "Co-follower metric on academic-social media ResearchGate: similarities between Derek de Solla Price Memorial Medal winners," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5545-5569, October.
    20. Camilleri, Mark Anthony & Kozak, Metin, 2022. "Interactive engagement through travel and tourism social media groups: A social facilitation theory perspective," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:17:y:2023:i:4:s1751157723000792. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.