JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Social media influencer marketing is a digital advertisement strategy that is growing in popularity. Its use has been documented in consumer purchasing behavior but is yet to be described for clinical trial recruitment. In this tutorial, we describe the steps we followed to develop and deploy a social media influencer advertisement for the recruitment of participants into the Groceries for Residents of Southeastern USA to Stop Hypertension (GoFreshSE) trial. We also provide a preparation framework for other studies who would like to use this modality for their own clinical trial recruitment. We used Cameo Business to identify potentially relevant influencers to hire by selecting influencers who were popular in the 3 geographic areas from which GoFreshSE is recruiting. We narrowed down the list of possible influencers by selecting those with ≥100,000 followers on their respective social media platforms (for a wide reach) and charged a cost of ≤$3,000/video. We ultimately selected a former football coach, who provided a high-quality video of him reading an institutional review board-approved script 4 days later. We utilized open source, commercially available tools to edit the video and deployed the 44-second-long video on Facebook and Instagram using Meta’s Advertising platform. Social media influencer marketing through the Cameo Business platform is a rapid mechanism to develop clinical trial influencer recruitment videos.