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General information:
Altmetrics draws on social media sources such as blogs and twitter. Traditional bibliometrics rely on citation counts of journal articles in a particular journal to infer the impact of that journal. Altmetrics are “alternative metrics” to traditional bibliometrics. Powered by web technologies altmetrics are a group of indicators that demonstrate how much attention readers in academia and the general public alike are paying toward a particular article or author. They also show the type of influence the research or the research might be having through who is discussing it, where and in what context.
While altmetrics have some advantages over traditional bibliometrics, they are incomplete in and of themselves, and provide different information than bibliometrics.
Thus best practices suggest that altmetrics should be used in conjunction with bibliometrics to paint a more complete picture of research influence whenever possible.
For more information, here are some reading suggestions:
1. What are altmetrics? – Altmetric. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.altmetric.com/about-altmetrics/what-are-altmetrics/
2. Altmetrics (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.library.illinois.edu/learn/research/altmetrics.html