Online word-of-mouth in West Africa: the effects of snowball sampling on completion rate, respondent demographics, and survey responses

TL;DR

This study compares river and snowball sampling methods via Facebook ads in West Africa, revealing differences in respondent demographics, completion rates, and response behaviors.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on how snowball sampling influences survey participation, respondent diversity, and response patterns in social media-based research.

Findings

Snowball sampling yields higher survey completion rates.

Respondents from snowball sampling are more likely to be women and new users.

Snowball respondents give shorter responses and spend less time on surveys.

Abstract

We place geo-targeted advertisements on Facebook to encourage users to fill out an online survey, following a process known as river sampling. We discovered a large number and variety of users also came to our survey through snowball sampling, including shared social media posts and other word-of-mouth referral methods. In this article, we analyze the differences between the respondents from river and snowball sampling. We present evidence that the respondents obtained by snowball sampling are more likely to complete the survey and contain a higher fraction of new users and women than those obtained by river sampling. Additionally, the evidence indicates that users from snowball sampling give shorter responses and take less time on the survey than users from river sampling. We hope these findings provide insight for other researchers who incorporate social media strategies when fielding surveys.