Observational studyJournal of medical Internet research2022
Social Media Recruitment Strategies to Recruit Pregnant Women Into a Longitudinal Observational Cohort Study: Usability Study.
Observational study in Journal of medical Internet research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Lessons learned from longitudinal biomonitoring and birth cohort studies: informing the future of reproductive health research in Canada.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2026Article
- Using Epidemiological Test Diagnostics to Select Fraud Detection Methods: Secondary Analysis of Quantitative Cross-Sectional Survey Data.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Challenges and Opportunities in Recruiting a Very Large Sample of Pregnant Individuals: Secondary Analysis of an Online Nationwide Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR pediatrics and parenting · 2025Article
- Imposters, Bots, and Other Threats to Data Integrity in Online Research: Scoping Review of the Literature and Recommendations for Best Practices.Online journal of public health informatics · 2025Review
- Incentives and Trust Are the Main Drivers of Recruiting Participants in 6 African Countries via Web-Based Environments: A Vignette Survey Experiment.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- The impact of relationship factors on antenatal depression in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.Birth (Berkeley, Calif.) · 2025Article
- Recruitment and retention of participants with obesity into a longitudinal birth cohort: the Breastfeeding and Early Child Health (BEACH) study.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Article
- Recruiting sexual minority youth for a drug abuse prevention trial: Comparing Instagram and Facebook.Contemporary clinical trials · 2025Article
- Targeted electronic health record-based recruitment strategy to enhance COVID-19 vaccine response clinical research study enrollment.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2024Article
- Stigma, Social Support, and Decision Satisfaction in Terminations of Pregnancy for Medical Reasons.Women's health reports (New Rochelle, N.Y.) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundUse 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.
objectiveOur 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.
methodsPaid 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.
resultsPaid 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.
conclusionsPaid 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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