Promoting Clinical Trials

Promoting Clinical Trials

Promoting Clinical Trials

There are two ways you can promote IRB-HSR clinical trials through social media:

1. Start your own account for your department or clinical area. To do this you must apply through Strategic Relations and Marketing.

2. Work with UVA Health Strategic Relations and Marketing to create paid Facebook and/or Instagram ads through the Health System’s accounts. You will need a budget for this, but effective Facebook ads can be as cheap as $300.

Note: Flyers

We do not share flyers through the Health System Twitter and Facebook accounts. Copy-heavy images do not meet our digital accessibility standards, and they’re also a violation of Facebook advertising rules.

Just like any clinical trials materials, all social media accounts, posts and ads must be approved by UVA’s IRB-HSR office.

What’s the Best Strategy?

Having your own account will require daily monitoring and ongoing posts and interaction. But it may be the best approach if you have many trials to promote. Read our social media guidelines to learn more about best practices. 

The benefits of doing paid ads through Marketing include:

  • Larger audience
  • Social media expertise
  • We handle the writing and planning

However, we require a minimum of five weeks advance notice to create your ad and get IRB approval. We may also need to push the ad run date out further if we have other clinical trial ads running.

Starting Your Own Account

1. Follow the directions in the social media guidelines to send your account request to Marketing. 

2. If Marketing approves your request, complete UVA IRB’s Facebook or Twitter management plan.

3. Submit this to the IRB at [email protected], along with a routing form. 

4. Once IRB has approved your account, you will need to submit any individual Facebook posts or tweets that recruit for a trial to the IRB office again. Use the Facebook posting template or tweet template. Marketing does not need to approve these posts.

Creating a Paid Facebook Advertisement

1. Your trial must be listed on uvahealth.com so that we can provide consumers a link to get more information about the trial. If it’s not listed, submit an online advertisement with an attached website template document.

2. Email Strategic Relations and Marketing's Web Team. Include:

  • The trial’s IRB number
  • Any approved flyers or other ad materials
  • Target audience: Age range, location, other criteria maximum budget for the ad
  • Your PTAO

3. The web team will work with you to develop a strategy and ad draft. Please allow up to 15 business days for this.

4. Submit the plan to the IRB at [email protected], along with a routing form.

5. Once the IRB has approved the plan, let the web team know, and we’ll set the ad up.