Fast, Free, and Targeted

Abstract

Recruiting participants is a necessary step in many studies. With the advent of online research techniques, scientists are looking for new places where participants can be recruited online, in order to overcome the limitations of current sources and avoid the issues associated with sample overuse. The social media website “Reddit” is a potential source for recruitment, as it allows for free and rapid data collection from large samples, while enabling researchers to target specific populations when needed. The ability to recruit for free is especially important because it enables students and early career researchers, for whom even low recruitment costs can be prohibitive, to benefit from the opportunity of conducting research that they otherwise would not be able to. The current article therefore aims to bring this prospective, untapped resource to the attention of the research community. The article discusses current online recruitment sources and their limitations, provides an overview of Reddit, validates its use for research purposes, examines participation data from previous studies which recruited through Reddit, highlights its advantages and limitations as a participant pool, and suggests guidelines that can improve recruitment and retention rates for scientists looking to use Reddit for their research.

Recruiting cancer survivors into research studies using online methods: a secondary analysis from an international cancer survivorship cohort study

“…Data from January 2019 indicated that 1.65 billion people had used Reddit in the preceding 12 months [24]. Reddit may enable the targeting of more specific populations than Facebook [25]. To our knowledge, no studies have reported on the efficacy of Reddit as an online source for recruiting cancer survivors.…”

Measuring Systems Engineering and Design Thinking Attitudes

“…There currently exist few published articles where participants were recruited through Reddit to gauge reliably the quality of data collected through it. Using Reddit to recruit study participants is potentially advantageous for several reasons (Shatz 2017). First, it is possible to recruit large samples in a short amount of time.…”

Autism and online recruiting methods: A comparison of Mechanical Turk and discussion forums

“…One such online forum is Reddit, with has been used with some success to recruit large samples quickly and at no cost. Reddit can also be used when researchers are interested in targeting specific groups (Shatz, 2017). One study suggests using seven guidelines for recruiting from Reddit specifically: post to a relevant subreddit; post to multiple relevant subreddits when necessary; clearly highlight the nature of the study in the post's title; post at an optimal time of day; note for demographics by time of time posting; keep surveys concise to avoid attrition; and engage with the community after posting if there are any questions (Shatz, 2017).…”