Targeted advertisements on Facebook and Instagram as survey recruitment tools for hard-to-reach populations
Register HERE
Event Location: Room 129, McGill Education Building, 3700 McTavish Street, Montréal, Québec, H3A 1Y2
Sponsored by: Centre on Population Dynamics (CPD) & Centre of the Study of Democratic Citizenship (CSDC)
Cost: Free
Backgrounder:
Surveying specific sub-populations within a society is one of survey research’s long-standing methodological challenges. The survey recruitment of hard-to-reach populations through social networking sites (SNS), and particularly through Facebook’s and Instagram’s targeted advertising capabilities, is a promising approach that allows scholars to tackle this issue. During the last years, it received growing attention and has, for example, been successfully used to survey migrants, LGBTQ populations, supporters of conspiracy myths, and employees in specific economic sectors. Furthermore, this approach allows realizing large-scale surveys on topics of high societal importance, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the unexpected large-scall displacement of people, within a concise timeframe.
Starting with a discussion of this method’s potential and limitations, the workshop will focus on the practicalities of targeting specific populations through Facebook and Instagram. Special attention will be paid to issues important to consider when planning a sampling strategy using Facebook/Instagram.
The workshop will be based on several recent research projects targeting, among others, German emigrants globally, health sector workers in Germany and Ukrainian refugees in Germany and Poland.
Lecturers:
Steffen Pötzschke is a postdoc and deputy team leader of the GESIS Panel at GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim (Germany) and a corresponding member of the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (University of Osnabrück).
Michael Zoorob is a social scientist working on Meta's Research Partnerships team to support academic research with Meta advertising products.