Using social media to target hard-to-reach populations: The search for consumers of online raw DNA interpretation services (Preprint)
Authors: Cahill Tiernan , Wertz Blake , Zhong Qiankun , Parlato Andrew , Donegan John , Foreman Rebecca , Manot Supriya , Wu Tianyi , Xu Yazhu , Cummings James J , Norkunas Cunningham Tricia , Wang Catharine 
Published: December 2018

BACKGROUND

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of third-party online services available to consumers to interpret “raw DNA” from direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing companies. Little is known about who uses these services and the downstream health implications. Identifying this hard-to-reach population of consumers for research raised questions about the most effective recruitment methods to undertake. Past studies have found that online social media survey distribution can be cost effective for targeting hard-to-reach populations [1] yet comparative efficacy information across platforms is limited.

OBJECTIVE

The present study set out to identify the most effective online strategies to identify and recruit the target population of direct to consumer genetics testing (DTC-GT) users who also made use of third-party interpretation services to analyze their raw genetic data. Online survey recruitment methods varying by social media platform and advertising method were compared in terms of cost-effectiveness and demographics of survey respondents.

METHODS

Five online survey distribution conditions were examined; four paid advertising services and one unpaid service. For the paid services, a 2x2 quasi-experimental design compared social media platform (Facebook vs. Twitter) and advertising tracking metric (by click vs. by conversion). The fifth unpaid comparison method consisted of study postings on the social media platform Reddit without any paid advertising. Links to identical online versions of the study questionnaire were posted for 10-14 days for each of the distribution conditions, which allowed tracking the number of respondents that entered and completed the questionnaire by distribution condition.

RESULTS

A total of 452 individuals were recruited to the study through all conditions. Nearly equivalent number of participants were recruited from paid campaigns on Facebook (n = 168) and Twitter (n = 170), with a smaller sample recruited on Reddit (n = 114). Significantly more participants were recruited through conversion tracking (n = 232) than through click tracking campaigns (n = 106; X2(3) = 85.432, p < .001). Response rates were found to be partially driven by organic sharing of recruitment materials between social media users. Conversion tracking was more cost-effective than click tracking across paid social media platforms. Significant differences in terms of gender and age distributions were noted between platforms and between tracking metrics.

CONCLUSIONS

Online recruitment methods were effective at recruiting participants from a hard-to-reach population in a short time frame. There were significant differences in the effectiveness of various paid advertising techniques. Community-based recruitment methods also appeared to perform adequately, yet may be limited by the number of users accessible in open community groups. Future research should evaluate the impact of organic sharing of recruitment materials, since this appeared to play a substantial role in the observed effectiveness of different methods.