Am aware of examples of where this has been carried out. However to be successful at this you need to already have traction via social media whether it be via Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Plus you need to know how to engage your target group and what kind of threads they may follow.

For example on Twitter there are hashtags for social media type threads and it depends on which group you are targeting as to what hashtags you would incorporate into your tweets.

If you belong to an organization which is sponsoring your research and/or is a partner you may also gain traction if they are prepared to disseminate the requisite inormation via their social media channels.

Of course the limitations with this approach tend to be that you are recruiting informants who are adept at social media and this may create some unintended limitations when it comes to interpreting the data obtained from the study that you intend to undertake.

Hello Deborah, Thank you for the very useful insights on how to go about this process, and the note on limitations as well. I will keep those in mind.

However, what do you think about recruiting informants through friends who may have more traction than you on social media?

That may be a useful strategy, and could increase the pool of potential informants. Certainly I have seen links to surveys re-tweeted on Twitter by interested parties.

Dear Deborah,

Thank you for the reassurance. Your responses have been very helpful.