Social media platforms, primarily Meta's Facebook and Instagram, can be effective tools for recruiting participants in sexual and reproductive health research, but require considerable flexibility, iterative adjustment, and awareness of platform-specific challenges and pitfalls.
Key Findings
Methods
Social media recruitment, primarily via Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram, was used successfully to recruit participants for sexual and reproductive health research across both qualitative and quantitative studies.
The authors draw on their own research experiences using Facebook and Instagram as primary recruitment platforms.
The paper covers recruitment for both qualitative and quantitative study designs.
Sexual and reproductive health was the specific research domain across the studies described.
The paper frames itself as a practical guide based on accumulated experience rather than a single trial.
Background
Recruiting the right participants in sufficient numbers and within budget represents a critical challenge that can determine the success or failure of social research studies.
The authors describe finding 'the right people (and the right number of them) at the right time' as essential to study success.
Recruitment challenges can strain research budgets.
The process requires 'considerable flexibility' according to the authors.
Online recruitment strategies are described as 'increasingly popular' for addressing these challenges.
Results
The authors identified both successes ('triumphs') and failures ('pitfalls') in using social media recruitment, along with specific challenges and lessons learned.
The paper explicitly outlines both positive outcomes and problematic experiences from their social media recruitment efforts.
Challenges encountered during the recruitment process are documented.
Lessons learned are presented to provide guidance for other researchers.
The paper is positioned as a practical guide intended to help other researchers avoid common mistakes.
Discussion
The paper provides a practical guide for researchers wishing to use social media platforms to recruit study participants.
Examples from the authors' own research are included throughout the guidance.
The guide is specifically aimed at researchers in sexual and reproductive health, though the lessons may apply more broadly.
The paper addresses the use of Meta platforms specifically, including both Facebook and Instagram.
The intent is to share experiential knowledge to benefit the broader research community.
What This Means
This research paper shares practical lessons from a team of researchers who used Facebook and Instagram to find people willing to participate in studies about sexual and reproductive health. Rather than reporting results from a single experiment, it functions as a how-to guide based on the team's accumulated real-world experience running multiple studies. The authors describe what worked well, what went wrong, how much it can cost, and how much flexibility researchers need to be prepared for when using these platforms.
This research suggests that social media can be a viable and increasingly popular way to recruit study participants, but it comes with unique challenges that differ from traditional recruitment methods like flyers or in-person outreach. The authors found that success requires ongoing adjustment of strategies, careful attention to platform-specific rules and algorithms, and realistic budgeting. Their experiences with both qualitative studies (like interviews) and quantitative surveys are covered, making the guidance relevant across different research designs.
For the broader research community, this matters because recruitment is often one of the most difficult and expensive parts of running a study, and poor recruitment can cause an entire research project to fail. By openly sharing both their successes and failures, the authors aim to save other researchers time, money, and frustration when trying to reach specific populations — particularly for sensitive health topics like sexual and reproductive health, where finding willing participants through conventional means can be especially difficult.
Coombe J, Bittleston H, Ludwick T, Lim M, Cardwell E, Stewart L, et al.. (2025). Recruiting participants via social media for sexual and reproductive health research.. Sexual health. https://doi.org/10.1071/SH24123