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Uncovering information from social media hyperlinks: An investigation of twitter

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  • Liwen Vaughan

Abstract

Analyzing hyperlink patterns has been a major research topic since the early days of the web. Numerous studies reported uncovering rich information and methodological advances. However, very few studies thus far examined hyperlinks in the rapidly developing sphere of social media. This paper reports a study that helps fill this gap. The study analyzed links originating from tweets to the websites of 3 types of organizations (government, education, and business). Data were collected over an 8‐month period to observe the fluctuation and reliability of the individual data set. Hyperlink data from the general web (not social media sites) were also collected and compared with social media data. The study found that the 2 types of hyperlink data correlated significantly and that analyzing the 2 together can help organizations see their relative strength or weakness in the two platforms. The study also found that both types of inlink data correlated with offline measures of organizations' performance. Twitter data from a relatively short period were fairly reliable in estimating performance measures. The timelier nature of social media data as well as the date/time stamps on tweets make this type of data potentially more valuable than that from the general web.

Suggested Citation

  • Liwen Vaughan, 2016. "Uncovering information from social media hyperlinks: An investigation of twitter," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(5), pages 1105-1120, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:67:y:2016:i:5:p:1105-1120
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.23486
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bernard J. Jansen & Mimi Zhang & Kate Sobel & Abdur Chowdury, 2009. "Twitter power: Tweets as electronic word of mouth," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(11), pages 2169-2188, November.
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    5. Jang Hyun Kim & George A. Barnett & Han Woo Park, 2010. "A hyperlink and issue network analysis of the United States Senate: A rediscovery of the Web as a relational and topical medium," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(8), pages 1598-1611, August.
    6. Liwen Vaughan & Rongbin Yang, 2012. "Web data as academic and business quality estimates: A comparison of three data sources," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(10), pages 1960-1972, October.
    7. Mike Thelwall & David Wilkinson & Sukhvinder Uppal, 2010. "Data mining emotion in social network communication: Gender differences in MySpace," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(1), pages 190-199, January.
    8. Liwen Vaughan & Justin You, 2006. "Comparing business competition positions based on Web co-link data: The global market vs. the Chinese market," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 68(3), pages 611-628, September.
    9. Esteban Romero-Frías & Liwen Vaughan, 2012. "Exploring the relationships between media and political parties through web hyperlink analysis: The case of Spain," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(5), pages 967-976, May.
    10. Mike Thelwall & Gareth Harries, 2003. "The connection between the research of a university and counts of links to its web pages: An investigation based upon a classification of the relationships of pages to the research of the host univers," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 54(7), pages 594-602, May.
    11. Liwen Vaughan, 2004. "Exploring website features for business information," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 61(3), pages 467-477, November.
    12. Jang Hyun Kim & George A. Barnett & Han Woo Park, 2010. "A hyperlink and issue network analysis of the United States Senate: A rediscovery of the Web as a relational and topical medium," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(8), pages 1598-1611, August.
    13. Liwen Vaughan & Rongbin Yang, 2012. "Web data as academic and business quality estimates: A comparison of three data sources," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(10), pages 1960-1972, October.
    14. Liwen Vaughan & Guozhu Wu, 2004. "Links to commercial websites as a source of business information," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(3), pages 487-496, August.
    15. Junping Qiu & Jingquan Chen & Zhi Wang, 2004. "An analysis of backlink counts and Web Impact Factorsfor Chinese university websites," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(3), pages 463-473, August.
    16. Stefanie Haustein & Isabella Peters & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Mike Thelwall & Vincent Larivière, 2014. "Tweeting biomedicine: An analysis of tweets and citations in the biomedical literature," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(4), pages 656-669, April.
    17. Esteban Romero‐Frías & Liwen Vaughan, 2012. "Exploring the relationships between media and political parties through web hyperlink analysis: The case of Spain," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(5), pages 967-976, May.
    18. Xin Shuai & Alberto Pepe & Johan Bollen, 2012. "How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-8, November.
    19. Mike Thelwall & David Wilkinson & Sukhvinder Uppal, 2010. "Data mining emotion in social network communication: Gender differences in MySpace," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(1), pages 190-199, January.
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    1. Hanya Riad & Claudio Vitari, 2019. "The Effect of Interpretive Media Packages on Political Engagement: a new framework [Les effets des réseaux sociaux sur l'engagement politique : un nouveau model]," Post-Print hal-02293770, HAL.

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