Ever wondered how recruiting for a research study through social media works? Or maybe you tried but did not see the results you expected? Over the last six months, Healthy Teen Network has recruited over 1,700 young women across the United States to participate in two randomized controlled trials to test our two new mobile apps. We primarily used social media to recruit participants and enrolled them through a website portal. This two-part interactive blog will share our lessons learned in successfully recruiting, screening, and enrolling participants into our two research studies.

After considering various social media channels for launching our recruitment ads, we selected Facebook and Instagram. Facebook owns Instagram, and they use the same ads manager platform to create, deploy, and monitor campaigns. You can select on which channel you want your ads to be displayed. This also allows you to test on where they perform better without recreating your ads.

Click on the orange + signs on the images below to learn more about each aspect of our campaigns.

-Co-written by Mila Garrido and Nick Sufrinko.

This post is Part 1 of a 2-Part Series. Part 2 provides information about screening and enrolling your participants.