Engaging Social Media Influencers to Recruit Hard-to-Reach Populations

Though clinical researchers have begun to use social media platforms to recruit participants, social media influencers are innovative community connectors to further expand recruitment reach, especially in hard-to-reach populations.

The purpose of this methods article is to provide a step-by-step guide for engaging social media influencers for virtual participant recruitment.

There are multiple steps for researchers to follow, including preplanning, institutional review board approval, engaging with influencers, the pitch, the post, and results dissemination.

Engaging social media influencers to recruit for clinical research demonstrates great potential to increase access to hard-to-reach populations. Several methodological considerations remain, and this article shares both opportunities and challenges to guide researchers in this technique.