Table 4 Advantages and disadvantages of social media platforms used for advertising
Platform | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
Facebook (paid) | • Most social media users • User friendly • Interconnected with other platforms • Wide reach • Demographic targeting • Custom audiences • Performance tracking • Optimising capabilities | • Cost based on link clicks not on actual enrolments • Approval of advert may take 24 hrs • Advert may be rejected by moderator • Digital skills required to craft a well performing advert • Adverts can be fatigued • Decreasing popularity with users |
Reddit (unpaid) | • Simple to use • Diverse user base • Posting in forums is free • UK and international coverage | • Post reactive platform • Overflowing content in subreddits • Visibility of post decreases quickly • Requires regular posting • Time-consuming for researcher • Knowledge of Reddit-specific terminology is needed |
Twitter (unpaid) | • Often used for recruitment • Free to post • Hashtags help the discovery of the posts by users interested in the topic | • Limited character count • Shorter content is needed • Reduced freedom in content creation • Poor organic reach • Time-consuming for researcher |
Instagram (unpaid) | • Popular platform • A lot of active users • Free to post • Appealing interface • Organised layout of posts • Many creative and fun features for creating posts (emoji, music, filters) • Various content sharing formats (images, videos, short sound clips) | • Cannot target specific audiences • Poor organic reach • Only optimised for app use, its web-version is substandard • Requires capturing content • Limited insight into performance of posts • Creating different types of content formats can be time-consuming |
Facebook (unpaid) | • Creation of study specific Facebook page, instead of profile, increases credibility • Free to post | • Difficult to gain followers • Poor organic reach • Cannot target specific audiences • Many features only available when paying for the adverts |