Organic social media strategy for recruiting pregnant couples with a moderate-to-heavy drinking partner: Recommendations for expanding clinical trial recruitment
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Herrera, Katrina
- Area of Honors:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Rina Das Eiden, Thesis Supervisor
Sarah Myruski, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- alcohol intervention
child development
recruitment strategy
parenting program
organic social media content - Abstract:
- Ensuring that randomized clinical trial recruitment efforts succeed is a difficult task, particularly with a vulnerable, hard-to-reach, or specific target population, such as pregnant women, fathers, or individuals struggling with alcohol use. Recently, social media has emerged as a cost-effective recruitment method. However, most of the existing research examines paid content, not organic (unpromoted) content. Over 22 months, organic social media content was published on Instagram and Facebook to recruit couples expecting their first child, with a moderate-to-heavy drinking non-pregnant partner, for the randomized clinical trial Strong Family Foundations. First, we hypothesized that organic post reach and engagement would mediate the relationship between the number of organic posts and the number of eligibility screeners completed based on social media recruitment. Second, a comprehensive coding scheme was developed and used to examine if certain post characteristics predicted higher reach or engagement on Instagram and Facebook. In relation to reach and/or engagement, significant differences between different post characteristics were found for post category, diverse representation in images, presence of external links, and specific colors. Notably, casual, lighthearted posts predicted higher reach and engagement than science-oriented content. In addition, the number of organic posts published per month was significantly associated with monthly organic post reach, but not engagement. Monthly reach, engagement, and the number of organic posts all were not associated with the number of social media screeners completed per month. This study provides evidence for organic social media as a recruitment method for clinical trials, suggesting that certain strategies are advantageous for reaching and engaging the target audience, specifically incorporating more casual, genuine content. Additional organic social media strategies and several avenues for future research are proposed.