Recruitment through Facebook to an online survey on self-managed weight-loss in Australia – lessons learned

Abstract

The need for effective online research methods are presently felt more than ever, with the circumstances arising from the pandemic. The use of Facebook, the largest social media platform, for recruitment of research participants were on the rise, even prior to the pandemic for a range of social and health research purposes. However, understanding of mechanisms and data collection and tracking of recruitment within Facebook are still less understood among researchers. We present our exploration, novel online set-up methods, results, lessons learned and recommendations, from recruiting Australian adults to complete an online survey on self-managed weight-loss. Paid advertisements yielded better results (n = 153), than free promotion through Facebook Groups (n= 80), and costed on average AUD 9.95 per completed survey, as did spreading budgets over a 7-day period. Raffle incentives and simplified online consent showed minor improvement in completion rates (7% paid promotions, 4% free promotions). Lessons learned about advertisement copy, targeting and reach, researcher transparency, recruiting through Facebook groups, and tracking conversion rates are discussed.