How we work with Facebook

Hugh Carling

Hugh Carling

Liveminds

Co-founder of Liveminds. I love to bring like-minded people together. Whether that's growing businesses, running online communities, staging events or captaining my village cricket team, nothing makes me happier than seeing people with a shared passion, coming together and making the most of it.

How some organisations use Facebook for research has been the subject of some scary headlines recently so we want to explain exactly how our research recruitment service works to reassure anybody who has taken part in our projects or wants to in the future.

Liveminds helps brands understand the views of their customers, by finding the right market research participants based on real behaviours. We call our approach Behavioural Recruitment because it’s powered by Facebook’s advertising system which uses data on what over 2 billion users in 190 countries are actually interested in.

We are members of the Market Research Society and follow its strict code of conduct which has protected participants and research providers and for 60 years. It safeguards standards, promotes confidence and champions professionalism.

Here’s how our service works

First, a research agency gives us a brief to find people who fit a brand’s customer profile to take part in a particular market research project. For example, UK-based women, aged 18-35 who are interested in music videos to take part in a research project for a TV channel.

We then use Facebook’s advertising system to place sponsored posts in the Facebook News Feed of anyone whose demographics, interests and behaviours match the project’s criteria. In the adverts we tell people how long the project will take, how it will be conducted and what the reward will be.

If people see the advert and want to get involved, they click through and take a short survey (screener) to check that they definitely qualify to take part in the project. The screener requires people to install an app which ensures we can be certain that nobody ever takes the same screener twice giving different responses to gain access to a project that they aren’t truly a fit for. The app requires the minimum possible Facebook information to install it - public profile and email address and there is no access to any information whatsoever about peoples friends.

The responses people give in this screener are used to determine whether or not they fit the project’s criteria. If they aren’t selected for the project, the responses will never be shared outside of Liveminds and will be permanently deleted 1 year on. If a person is selected, then their screener responses will be shared with the researcher, so that they understand a bit more about the person taking part in the project when talking to them.

When a participant is successfully chosen, we explain exactly what’s involved in the project via email and telephone, and give them full details of how to take part.

When the research is done, participants receive the cash reward they were promised - delivered via PayPal in the vast majority of countries. We NEVER add people to a database to be contacted about future projects, and we NEVER sell on any personal information. The information participants provide during the project will only be seen by the researchers working on the project (typically one or two) with some edited highlights shown to staff at the brand that commissioned the project (typically in a Powerpoint presentation).

We’ve recruited tens of thousands of excellent participants over the last few years. Each has  been financially rewarded for sharing their views on subjects that they’re genuinely interested in, for every kind of research project from face-to-face groups, to online surveys, to accompanied shopping trips. 

We take our obligations to each person very seriously and are completely transparent in how we work with researchers. We are happy to say that with more than 350 reviews on Facebook we have a 4.9/5 rating from our participants. If you have any questions, please do get in touch.


Get a quote for Behavioural Recruitment

Find fresh, representative research participants based on real behaviour in 190+ countries.

To discuss a project contact us at hello@liveminds.com or call us