Communication strategies for designing Facebook advertising campaigns to recruit rural participants to develop healthcare delivery interventions

Abstract

Background: Little is known about designing research recruitment campaigns that connect with underserved, geographically isolated rural populations. A theoretically informed process is needed to assist research teams and practitioners in their evaluation of Facebook’s feasibility as a recruitment tool and development of online materials for recruiting rural adults into healthcare delivery intervention development studies. Methods: We drew from research and theory in communication and incorporated process analysis techniques to develop replicable procedures for designing and evaluating Facebook campaigns for rural recruitment. We describe our process and illustrate using two case studies. Results: Campaigns received approximately 1000 link clicks from the target rural demographic and successfully enrolled participants using Facebook as a primary method of recruitment. The rural tobacco intervention development study received a total of 477 link clicks, cost only $155.80, and enrolled three (23%) of its 13 participants from Facebook. The rural mental health intervention development study received a total of 518 link clicks, cost only $233.28, and enrolled 178 participants. Conclusions: Our process yielded two successful recruitment campaigns. Facebook was an affordable and efficacious strategy for enrolling adults in behavioral research studies on tobacco and mental health. Future work should apply these theoretical techniques to additional study topics and evaluate specific message features associated with recruitment.

Engaging Institutional Stakeholders to Develop and Implement Guidelines for Recruiting Participants in Research Studies Using Social Media: Mixed Methods, Multi-Phase Process

“…Develop social media recruitment templates for submitting IRB protocols and developing theoretically derived advertisements [ 8 ], and a risk matrix with examples of high and low-risk social media recruitment activities and the level of review required for each social media recruitment activity (task force and committee)…”

“…The full policies and procedures, including a risk matrix, is included in Multimedia Appendix 1 . Social media recruitment templates are included in Multimedia Appendix 2 and elsewhere [ 8 ].…”

“…The central channel benefits research teams who are interested in using social media for recruitment but who may lack the resources needed to develop and manage study recruitment campaigns effectively. The theoretically driven templates for advertising studies ensure that recruitment messages resonate with intended populations [ 8 ], and the investigator templates facilitate the timely submission and review of IRB protocols, benefiting researchers and those charged with reviewing social media protocols. Finally, because institutions use social media to communicate with the public about health topics [ 31 ] and social media can generate interest and awareness in research [ 32 ], including educating the community about research participation as a top priority could increase research literacy and understanding of the research process, ultimately leading to more informed research participants.…”

“…For instance, researchers used Twitter to recruit mothers to participate in a web-based study by tweeting their study invitation and asking users to retweet that information [ 5 ]. Teams also used Facebook advertising campaigns to cost-effectively recruit women into human papillomavirus vaccine effectiveness studies [ 6 ], screen and recruit adult smokers and heavy-drinking smokers into treatment research [ 7 ], and enroll rural adults into health care intervention development studies [ 8 ]. Social media are also cost-effective and successful channels for recruiting certain hard-to-reach and underrepresented populations in clinical research [ 8 - 10 ].…”

A Web-Based Intervention to Increase Smokers’ Intentions to Participate in a Cessation Study Offered at the Point of Lung Screening: Factorial Randomized Trial

“…Other studies have demonstrated interactivity in decision aids promote information sharing about clinical trials [ 12 ], whereas narrative interventions have been shown effective at conveying complex information through patient storytelling [ 13 ]. The use of cultural metaphors can effectively improve comprehension about randomization and intent to participate in a trial [ 14 , 15 ], while visual appeals that reflect social group memberships may increase perceptions of identity with the trial’s purpose [ 16 ]. Efforts to tailor recruitment materials for minorities have focused on framing participation as a way to reduce existing racial disparities in research, but have not yet been shown effective [ 17 ].…”