Beyond the Platform: Insights for Survey Recruitment Across Social Media |
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| Coordinator 1 | Mrs Jessica Donzowa (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research) |
| Coordinator 2 | Mr Ihsan Kahveci (University of Washington) |
In recent years, social media advertisements for survey recruitment have surged, particularly for targeting hard-to-reach populations (e.g., war refugees) or in response to crises (e.g., COVID-19). While earlier research focused primarily on the feasibility of social media ad recruitment and the applicability of different survey weighting techniques, recent advancements in survey methodology have shifted attention toward understanding design effects on data quality, such as advertisement design, campaign objectives, and budget allocation. However, much of this research remains limited to specific platforms, making it difficult to generalize findings across social media's diverse and ever-evolving landscape.
A persistent challenge for survey researchers is to generate insights and best practices for recruitment that are applicable beyond any single platform. Research shows that social media platforms differ substantially in terms of the demographics of their user base, making it challenging to achieve high-quality samples from a single platform. While the literature has explored the relative effectiveness of various platforms, examples of strategies that use multiple platforms to generate diverse samples are rare.
To address these challenges, we invite papers that help to generate best practices for survey recruitment using social media platforms. This includes how different social media platforms, with their capabilities for demographic targeting, can complement each other in recruitment efforts. We are also interested in submissions that explore alternative sampling methods in the digital space, such as online respondent-driven sampling or random walk approaches, particularly focusing on recruiting hard-to-reach populations. Whether submissions focus on using multiple platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok) or platform-agnostic (Google, Binge) methods, the session aims to uncover general insights that can help survey researchers navigate the challenges of a rapidly evolving digital recruitment landscape.