There have been several studies showing that the highly-tweeted papers are also highly-cited.

I think that's right. But not because tweeting causes citations.

In light of our results, it seems more likely that both social media communicators, and publishing scientists, recognize impactful work when they see it. Good science just gets talked about more, regardless of the medium.

That scientific research impact can't easily be gamed by social media I find quite reassuring.

@jannem @alexwild I would expect most scholars to perform their literature searches using databases at academic libraries. This work doesn't confirm that but it's what students are taught to do.

@ronpar @alexwild Yes, totally agree with this. Social media is better for finding papers outside my expertise that I would not otherwise notice, but would never cite since they are not in my area. Things in my field, I would see anyway.