Social media recruitment for research studies.

1. Using Digital Strategies to Target &
Recruit Potential Focus Group
Respondents
Amelia Burke-Garcia, MA
Westat
March 20, 2014

2. 2
Establish a shared understanding of
the opportunities for digital media use
in targeting and recruiting study
participants.

3. 3
What Are Digital Media?

4. 4
Earned (aka Free) vs. Paid Digital Media
PaidEarned

5. One size doesn’t fit all
5

6. Digital approaches for survey research
 Supplement to traditional recruitment methods
 Qualitative studies
 Message testing
 Reaching hard-to-reach audiences
 Field interviewer recruitment
6

7. The Challenge
7

8. 8
Traditional methods can be…

9. Digital media offers…
9

10. The Westat Approach
10

11. 11
Westat Paid Digital Recruitment Funnel

12. Westat Recruitment Campaign Optimization
Cycle
12

13. Westat Recruitment Campaign Optimization
Cycle
13

14. Westat Recruitment Campaign Optimization
Cycle
14

15. Pilot example
15

16. 16

17. 17

18. Recruitment Campaign Metrics
18
1,347 clicks
65 sign ups
14% qualified sign
up rate
1,262,462 impressions

19. Optimization Strategies Utilized
19
Using a data-driven
approach, both key
words and ad copy were
adjusted to ensure that
sign ups increasingly
consisted of qualified
participants.

20. What we learned
 Digital is an efficient and effective channel for
recruitment.
 Make sure to connect Google Analytics to your AdWords
campaign.
 Working with your screening team is critical to closing
the data loop on recruitment campaigns.
 Study-related keywords tend to be the most successful
in generating qualified sign ups and are most cost-
efficient.
 You are spreading your net wide so expect non-qualified
sign ups.
20

21. Future directions
21

22. 22
Broadening
recruitment
through
influencer
engagement.

23. 23
Increasing
retention
through
social media
tracing
strategies.

24. 24
Leveraging
social media
successfully
to connect
both
researchers
and research
participants.

25. Key Takeaways
 Digital doesn’t work for everything.
 Digital does offer many opportunities for research – both
from a cost efficiency stand point and for reaching hard-
to-reach audiences.
 Paid tactics are more turn-key while earned tactics take
time.
 Digital doesn’t live in a vacuum – all members of the
recruitment team need to work together.
 You must cast your net wide to get what you need.
 Nothing is wasted – these approaches can help to
backfill your recruitment databases.
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26. Thank you.
26
Amelia Burke-Garcia
ameliaburke@westat.com
@socialibriumm