Exploring the performance of Biological Invasions in social media five years after opening its Facebook and Twitter accounts

Social media can help scientific journals to disseminate and increase the social and scientific reach and impact of their publications. With this goal, the journal Biological Invasions has been active on Facebook and Twitter since 2017. Here, we assess for the first time the performance of Biological Invasions' Facebook and Twitter accounts. Twitter is the most widely used channel by scientists. Accordingly, scientists were the main followers of Biological Invasions' Twitter account. The number and geographical diversity of followers and the number of times Biological Invasions was mentioned in social networks were much higher on Twitter than on Facebook. However, Biological Invasions' Facebook account reaches users from different geographical areas than its Twitter account does (i.e., most followers of Biological Invasions' Facebook account were located in Europe and South America, while most followers on Twitter were located in Europe and North America). Certain geographical areas (e.g., Africa, Asia, and Central America) were poorly represented among social media followers on both accounts. Social media activities did not affect the number of reads or citations of Biological Invasions' scientific publications. However, being active on social media is likely to increase the social and scientific impact of the journal and to improve diversity and inclusivity of its scientific publications. We hope that future efforts directed towards increasing the performance of Biological Invasions in social media will help us achieve these goals.

Automated summary

Social media can help scientific journals increase their social and scientific impact. Biological Invasions journal has been active on Facebook and Twitter, with scientists being the main followers on Twitter. The number of followers and mentions on Twitter were higher than on Facebook, but the geographical diversity of Facebook followers was greater. However, social media activities did not affect the readership or citations of Biological Invasions' publications, though being active on social media could improve diversity and inclusivity.