Written by: Megan McDowell
Some segments of people are harder to reach than others, yet their voice and input are equally important. Often, young males are harder to entice for participation, as well as youth, newcomers, and LGBTQ2S+.
Having these voices included in the findings gathered by your platform is important and will provide you with more rounded results, representative of the sample or population you are engaging. It will give people the chance to share their voice in a meaningful way.
Although getting participants from these groups is challenging, it is not impossible. We have a number of techniques to help recruit people from various hard-to-reach groups.
1. Gather demographic measures in profile surveys that can be used to target other activities.
If there are certain groups of people, like the ones mentioned above, that you are especially interested in hearing from, be sure to include questions for their identification in the profile survey. This allows you to measure the number of representatives from these groups and to know when you need to make targeted recruitment efforts.
2. Create more than one profile survey to gather more demographic info, and to update current profiles.
If you notice that your original profile survey is missing a couple questions that you would like to ask about, but don’t feel like they have a place in a regular survey, create another one! Our platform allows for more than one profile survey so that you can continue to collect up-to-date demographic information as your research needs evolve.
3. Target advertising to recruit members for demographic segments that are underrepresented and encourage referrals from current members.
Notice one of your participant segments is low in number? Advertise to them! Targeted ads on social media can be catered to the groups you want to hear from. Encourage sign ups with special incentives, and encourage your current community members to invite a friend for points!
4. Target activities based on demographic information gathered by the profile survey, incorporate interesting/fun projects or special incentives to keep them engaged.
Once you have individuals signed up, you need to keep them engaged. Run special and interesting activities for certain groups to encourage their participation. Incorporating special incentives never hurts either.
5. Monitor panel health and membership to ensure registered users are actively participating.
Use panel health measures to monitor participation. Admins can set activity levels that monitor active logins. For instance, Activity Level 1 could be an active login in one month or less, Activity Level 2 could mean the most recent login was between 1-3 months ago, and Activity Level 3 could mean that the participant has not logged in for at least three months. Re-engage members who fall into Activity Level 2 (see point 4 above) and consider purging participants in Activity Level 3, then re-recruit to fill their spots with active members.
We are always here to help. If you have a need for an online community, or want to learn more about engaging hard-to-reach groups, contact us.
To learn more about what Insightrix Communities has been up to, check us out on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn!