How Can Social Media Support Your Research?
Hello Curious Learner,
Today’s blog post was written by my good friend and former graduate school buddy, Laura Grams. Laura is a Registered Dietitian who did her Masters in Nutrition and Metabolism at the University of Alberta, Canada. Laura’s research project was with pregnant women, and she used Facebook Ads to recruit participants. Facebook and Instagram Ads can be very powerful when used properly (it might be how we found each other)! So here are some insights that can help you decide if social media advertisement campaigns are something you should consider when planning your participant recruitment.
Talk soon,
Maira
Recruiting Through Facebook Advertisements by Laura Grams
"Recruitment. When I say this word, what comes to your mind as a researcher? For most, it is a thought similar to “that’s my least favourite part”.
Recruitment is the part of a research project that is critical, yet often seems to be difficult and slow. Common forms of recruitment (posters, brochures, flyers, newsletter articles) are often not enough to catch the attention of anyone born in the last 70 years. So, how can we stand out and attract our target audience? Now with access to social media, we are a generation that likes to interact, see artistically pleasing graphics, and be drawn in with emotion. Estimates from 2018 showed that 2.65 billion people access social media worldwide; a number that is expected to grow to 3.1 billion by 20211. How can researchers take advantage of this massive, captive audience?
In 2016, my research team and I trialed the use of paid Facebook advertisements to recruit pregnant women for a randomized controlled trial in Edmonton, Alberta2. Using Facebook was successful as it allowed us to reach women of our specific demographic in a relatively easy, efficient, and cost-effective manner compared to traditional recruitment techniques. Our recruitment time was significantly shortened (6 months instead of 1 year) due to use of social media. We were also able to recruit women of an earlier gestational age, which was previously deemed difficult for prenatal studies. If you want to read more, check out the 2016 publication in the Journal of Medical Internet Research here. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27655184)
Interested in using social media in a research context? Here are couple tips!
1) Be curious and flexible. If you don’t know what platform to use, ASK someone in your demographic group. Also, once you have success with one platform, don’t expect it to work forever, even if it’s the same audience. Social media changes often; in 2020, Instagram would be the right choice for my audience of pregnant women.
2) Break your audience down into distinct groups. Studies that are prime for social media advertising have a distinct subset of demographics such as location, age, education level, or interests. If your target audience is broad (ie: males and females between the age of 18-65), you may need to break your advertisements into multiple separate advertisements.
3) Go low and slow. Start with a low budget, and a short schedule (such a 1-2 days) to publish your ads. Use performance platforms, such as Facebook Ads Manager, Google Analytics or AdEspresso to measure how your ad is performing. Optimize for the next time.
4) Learn during the trial and error stage. Small adjustments such as changing the photo, the wording, or the time of day it was published can make a difference. Trial a few different variables, and see which works best. (This is the fun part!) Once you know which ad and when they perform best- throw in more money for advertising.
5) Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Although social media is an effective and efficient recruitment technique, employing a mix of novel and traditional techniques will avoid potential selection bias.
And to answer the question that is probably burning in everyone’s minds, what did ethics think? The only concern raised by the ethics board, was confirming that we were not privately/direct messaging individuals on social media. If you only use it as a platform to advertise, and have the participants take the action of contacting you if they are interested, then you should be good.
Happy recruiting!
Laura
References:
J. Clement (2019). Number of global social network users 2010-2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users
Adam et al. (2016). Can Facebook Be Used for Research? Experiences Using Facebook to Recruit Pregnant Women for a Randomized Controlled Trial. J Med Internet Research 18;9 (e250).