Altmetrics may be able to help in evaluating societal reach, but research significance must be peer reviewed.

Social media indicators of scholarly communication, or commonly referenced as altmetrics, are still far from being adopted as part of everyday research evaluation, but they already have stated value in indicating what is interesting and popular. Kim Holmberg argues these indicators have exciting potential for measuring the impact of public outreach. But further research is necessary to fully understand their value and possible applications. Where do we draw the line between promoting our own work and gaming the altmetrics?