Background
Social media (primarily Facebook) is a relatively new source of recruitment of research participants.
Method
The Australian Breakthrough Cancer (ABC) Study is an online prospective cohort study that aims to include 50,000 participants aged 40-74 years (www.abcstudy.com.au). A range of recruitment sources have been used including Facebook, word of mouth, invitations via the Australian Electoral Commission, Cancer Council events/communications.
Results
Of the almost 80,000 registrants, 36,672 ABC participants can be directly attributed to registering via Facebook (ie they clicked through from an advertisement for the ABC Study). Facebook also has the capability for users to ‘share’ the message thus increasing the reach. In total, 52,452 indicate they heard about the study via Facebook, representing 66% of all registrants. For those registrations directly attributable to Facebook, the per acquisition cost was $1.61.
Participants recruited via Facebook were more likely to be in younger age groups and less likely to complete the study than those recruited via other channels.
Facebook initially generated a large number of female registrants but the flexibility of the platform allowed for targeting of the advertisements and associated messaging to males which increased the registration of males.
Conclusion
Targeting of messaging and audience can be successfully used to modify the types of respondents to Facebook recruitment advertisements. Although the rate of completion was lower than ‘traditional’ sources of recruitment, the cost per acquisition was cheaper making it feasible to recruit a larger number of participants to obtain the desired study size.