An overview of social media metrics data aggregators

It is good to know that:

• Social media data aggregators differ in terms of metrics they offer, data sources they cover, and research products they track, and also the methods they calculate metrics.
• In order to know which aggregator to use, first think in which specific data source (Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc.) you are interested to track mention of research outputs; then check which aggregator cover that specific data source; and finally it is good to know how the metrics (for instance number of tweets vs. number of Twitter users) is calculated by that aggregator.
• Adding Altmetric.it bookmarklet to internet browser enables researchers to see Altmetric Attention Scores of the article that they have opened in their browser.
• Setting Alert me about new mentions (from altmetric detailed page) enables to get an e-mail when the research output is mentioned across social media platforms that are covered by Altmetric.com.
• PlumX metrics are available for research outputs in Pure 5.14.
• It is very important to emphasize that social media metrics are mostly available for research outputs that have digital identifiers (such as DOI, PubMed ID, etc.). Research outputs without digital identifiers are not tracked by social media metrics data aggregators.

Social media metrics data aggregators	For researchers	For institutes	For web developers/ programmers	Access
Altmetric.com Plum Analytics	Altmetric Donut /PlumX metrics enable researchers to track outreach of their research outputs in the covered social media platforms.	Altmetric Explorer/PlumX metrics for institutes (subscription-based) enable to track and summarize outreach of research outputs of an organization.	Altmetric Donut Badge/ PlumX Metrics Widget enable web developers to embed the badge/widget on the website or research portal in order to display the outreach of research outputs of an organization.	offer free tools for academics and subscription-based services for institutes.
Lagotto/PloS ALM CrossRef Event Data	Lagotto/PloS ALM article level metrics or raw social media data from CrossRef enable researchers to track outreach of their research outputs in the covered social media platforms.	enable institutes to make an article level metrics report of their outputs published in PloS journals using the dedicated website or for other publishers using Lagotto API.	There is no widget or badge. Web developers could use open source application to extract social media data to display on their web sites.	Lagotto open source application and CrossRef open Event Data API enable to retrieve social media data.
Impact Story	free online profile for researchers including social media metrics for their research outputs from the covered social media platforms.	enables institutes to track researcher’s profiles and social media impact of their research outputs.	There is no widget or badge.	offers open API and open source codes.