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Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study

BACKGROUND: Use of social media for study recruitment is becoming increasingly common. Previous studies have typically focused on using Facebook; however, there are limited data to support the use of other social media platforms for participant recruitment, notably in the context of a pregnancy stud...

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Autores principales: Pekarsky, Chloe, Skiffington, Janice, Leijser, Lara M, Slater, Donna, Metcalfe, Amy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9793295/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36508244
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/40298
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author Pekarsky, Chloe
Skiffington, Janice
Leijser, Lara M
Slater, Donna
Metcalfe, Amy
author_facet Pekarsky, Chloe
Skiffington, Janice
Leijser, Lara M
Slater, Donna
Metcalfe, Amy
author_sort Pekarsky, Chloe
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Use of social media for study recruitment is becoming increasingly common. Previous studies have typically focused on using Facebook; however, there are limited data to support the use of other social media platforms for participant recruitment, notably in the context of a pregnancy study. OBJECTIVE: Our study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in recruiting a representative sample of pregnant women in a longitudinal pregnancy cohort study in Calgary, Alberta, between September 27, 2021, and April 24, 2022. METHODS: Paid advertisements were targeted at 18- to 50-year-old women in Calgary, with interests in pregnancy. Data regarding reach, link clicks, and costs were collected through Facebook Ads Manager (Meta Platforms, Inc) and Twitter Analytics (Twitter, Inc). The feasibility of each platform for recruitment was assessed based on the recruitment rate and cost-effectiveness. The demographic characteristics of the participants recruited through each source were compared using the chi-square test. RESULTS: Paid advertisements reached 159,778 social media users, resulting in 2390 link clicks and 324 participants being recruited. Facebook reached and recruited the highest number of participants (153/324, 47.2%), whereas Instagram saw the highest number of link clicks relative to the number of users who saw the advertisement (418/19,764, 2.11%). Facebook and Instagram advertisements were cost-effective, with an average cost-per-click of CAD $0.65 (US $0.84; SD $0.27, US $0.35) and cost-per-completer of CAD $7.89 (US $10.25; SD CAD $4.08, US $5.30). Twitter advertisements were less successful in terms of recruitment and costs. Demographic characteristics of participants did not differ based on recruitment source, except for education and income, where more highly educated and higher-income participants were recruited through Instagram or Twitter. Many issues related to fraudulent responses were encountered throughout the recruitment period. CONCLUSIONS: Paid social media advertisements (especially Facebook and Instagram) are feasible and cost-effective methods for recruiting a large sample of pregnant women for survey-based research. However, future research should be aware of the potential for fraudulent responses when using social media for recruitment and consider strategies to mitigate this problem.
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spelling pubmed-97932952022-12-28 Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study Pekarsky, Chloe Skiffington, Janice Leijser, Lara M Slater, Donna Metcalfe, Amy J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Use of social media for study recruitment is becoming increasingly common. Previous studies have typically focused on using Facebook; however, there are limited data to support the use of other social media platforms for participant recruitment, notably in the context of a pregnancy study. OBJECTIVE: Our study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in recruiting a representative sample of pregnant women in a longitudinal pregnancy cohort study in Calgary, Alberta, between September 27, 2021, and April 24, 2022. METHODS: Paid advertisements were targeted at 18- to 50-year-old women in Calgary, with interests in pregnancy. Data regarding reach, link clicks, and costs were collected through Facebook Ads Manager (Meta Platforms, Inc) and Twitter Analytics (Twitter, Inc). The feasibility of each platform for recruitment was assessed based on the recruitment rate and cost-effectiveness. The demographic characteristics of the participants recruited through each source were compared using the chi-square test. RESULTS: Paid advertisements reached 159,778 social media users, resulting in 2390 link clicks and 324 participants being recruited. Facebook reached and recruited the highest number of participants (153/324, 47.2%), whereas Instagram saw the highest number of link clicks relative to the number of users who saw the advertisement (418/19,764, 2.11%). Facebook and Instagram advertisements were cost-effective, with an average cost-per-click of CAD $0.65 (US $0.84; SD $0.27, US $0.35) and cost-per-completer of CAD $7.89 (US $10.25; SD CAD $4.08, US $5.30). Twitter advertisements were less successful in terms of recruitment and costs. Demographic characteristics of participants did not differ based on recruitment source, except for education and income, where more highly educated and higher-income participants were recruited through Instagram or Twitter. Many issues related to fraudulent responses were encountered throughout the recruitment period. CONCLUSIONS: Paid social media advertisements (especially Facebook and Instagram) are feasible and cost-effective methods for recruiting a large sample of pregnant women for survey-based research. However, future research should be aware of the potential for fraudulent responses when using social media for recruitment and consider strategies to mitigate this problem. JMIR Publications 2022-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9793295/ /pubmed/36508244 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/40298 Text en ©Chloe Pekarsky, Janice Skiffington, Lara M Leijser, Donna Slater, Amy Metcalfe. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 12.12.2022. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Pekarsky, Chloe
Skiffington, Janice
Leijser, Lara M
Slater, Donna
Metcalfe, Amy
Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study
title Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study
title_full Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study
title_fullStr Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study
title_full_unstemmed Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study
title_short Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study
title_sort social media recruitment strategies to recruit pregnant women into a longitudinal observational cohort study: usability study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9793295/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36508244
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/40298
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