
Pre-screening: So that it’s clear what type of people you’re looking for. Explanatory: So people can quickly understand the basics of the study. Attention getting: So people notice it and want to read it. Figure 1 below shows some example Twitter calls for participants. The post is so important that it requires careful thought instead of just making something up on the spot. Instead, you can save a lot of work by using a more organized method. However, that can leave you with a lot of people to handle, contact, screen, and schedule. Recruiting with social media can be as simple as posting on Twitter or Facebook and having people contact you. An alternative is that your survey information is saved and you’re presented with a confirmation page that tells you that someone will call you to schedule time to do an in-person study. You’ve qualified as a participant, and you’re taken to an online, unmoderated usability test. You click a link to a screening survey, and you fill it out. You click on the link, and you’re taken to a web page with a more detailed description of the study. Imagine that you see a post on a social network about a study that’s looking for participants. To understand how recruiting with social media can work, let’s look at it from the potential participant’s perspective. Luckily, social media provides new options for reaching the right audience.
Unless you already have lists of potential participants (such as customers, employees, or members) it can be hard to find and recruit the right people, and using a recruiting company can be expensive.
Recruiting user research participants can be difficult and time consuming.