Using Social Media to Recruit Youth Who Use Electronic Cigarettes.

Research is needed to inform effective regulatory policy that can help curb electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use among youth. However, several challenges interfere with studying e-cigarette use among youth. Social media may provide an outlet to overcome these challenges. Our objective was to provide instructional information on tested methods for using social media to study e-cigarette use among youth. We developed 13 advertisements that were used to recruit e-cigarette users 14-24 years old who lived in the United States. We measured the effectiveness of the advertisements and quality of the resulting data. The advertisements reached 422,228 adolescents and young adults, 408 completed the survey, and 212 (52%) passed the quality check measures. The average cost per click was $0.36. Based on the current study, key recommendations for behavioral scientists interested in conducting e-cigarette research among youth include: (1) developing and testing multiple advertisements with the target audience; (2) advertising on social media platforms most commonly used by the target group; (3) tailoring (ie, age and interest) message options; and (4) using multiple types of data quality assurance items.