Do highly cited clinicians get more citations when being present at social networking sites?

The advent of social networking sites has facilitated the dissemination of scientific research. This article aims to investigate the presence of Iranian highly cited clinicians in social networking sites.

This is a scientometrics study. Essential Science Indicator (ESI) was searched for Iranian highly cited papers in clinical medicine during November–December 2015. Then, the authors of the papers were checked and a list of authors was obtained. In the second phase, the authors’ names were searched in the selected social networking sites (ResearchGate [RG], Academia, Mendeley, LinkedIn). The total citations and h‑index in Scopus were also gathered.

Fifty‑five highly cited papers were retrieved. A total of 107 authors participated in writing these papers. RG was the most popular (64.5%) and LinkedIn and Academia were in 2nd and 3rd places. None of the authors of highly cited papers were subscribed to Mendeley. A positive direct relationship was observed between visibility at social networking sites with citation and h‑index rate. A significant relationship was observed between the RG score, citations, reads indicators in RG, and citation numbers and there was a significant relationship between the number of document indicator in Academia and the citation numbers.

It seems putting the papers in social networking sites can influence the citation rate. We recommend all scientists to be present at social networking sites to have better chance of visibility and also citation.