A scientometric analysis of social media research (2004–2011)

To better understand the rapidly growing social media research domain, this study presents the findings of a scientometric analysis of the corresponding literature. We conducted a research productivity analysis and citation analysis of individuals, institutions, and countries based on 610 peer-reviewed social media articles published in journals and conference proceedings between October 2004 and December 2011. Results indicate that research productivity is exploding and that several leading authors, institutions, countries, and a small set of foundational papers have emerged. Based on the results—indicating that the social media domain displays limited diversity and is still heavily influenced by practitioners—the paper raises two fundamental challenges facing the social media domain and its future advancement, namely the lack of academic maturity and the Matthew Effect.