Social Media Ads as a tool for targeted survey sampling 1 |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Michael Zoorob (Meta Platforms) |
| Coordinator 2 | Dr Steffen Pötschke (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) |
| Coordinator 3 | Dr Bernd Weiß (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) |
The sampling of hard-to-reach populations remains a challenge in survey research. For example, conventional survey methods are often incapable of reaching very mobile groups, such as international migrants, or employees of specific industries, who are defined by an attribute that is usually not included in readily available sampling frames in most countries. Additional challenges occur in the field of comparative social research when a researcher must grapple with multiple national sampling systems that prevent consistency in sampling design.
Though not without its problems and challenges, the wide reach and detailed targeting options made available by social media advertising provide a potential solution to some of these core-problems in survey research. A nascent but growing suite of research tools, including automated Chatbots that provide customized messaging and automated survey response collection, has developed to enhance this approach. Recent research has underlined that social media constitute a useful recruitment tool allowing timely and cross-national data collections on relevant issues such as (forced) migration and the COVID-19 pandemic. This panel will discuss recent empirical research that samples via targeted social media advertising sampling in the absence of feasible alternatives. Preference will be given to contributions that, besides demonstrating the added value of this sampling approach, address additional methodological issues in terms of survey quality, e.g., sample composition in comparison to appropriate benchmarks, or nonresponse bias. We also welcome contributions that discuss issues of research ethics when applying this sampling approach.