Key Considerations When Designing a Social Media-Based Diary Study

Abstract

Qualitative data collection conducted on social media platforms is a recent methodological innovation with only a handful of studies exploring this approach. Even fewer explore the potential of social media platforms for conducting diary methods. This article highlights the key considerations a researcher must reflect upon when designing a social media-based diary study focused on everyday lived experience. It argues that due consideration must be afforded to the platform choice, design and structure of the diary, ethical considerations, cultural considerations, open communication, and strategies to improve participant engagement. In so doing, the researcher can enhance the quality of their study and gain better insight into their research topic. This article is based on a research study which explored the everyday lived experiences of 36 UK-based faith vegans, and which utilized private Facebook and WhatsApp groups to obtain topic-focused diary data from participants, such as photos of food, reflections on different experiences and events, and group discussions.

Introduction

Qualitative diary methods have a long history, dating back to the 1940s (Allport, 1942; Stonborough, 1942). In the eighty or so years since, this method has undergone considerable change, originating with pen and paper diaries, before taking on more digital forms alongside the rise of the Internet and portable technologies (Bartlett & Milligan, 2015). More recently, smartphone apps and social media platforms have been utilized as sites for collecting diary data (Atayee-Bennett, 2024a, 2025; Welford et al., 2022). Social media-based diary methods, however, remain a novel approach that has yet to be debated extensively in academic scholarship.

Digital diary methods utilizing online diaries, smartphone apps, or social media have been employed in the disciplines of health (McCombie et al., 2024a, 2024b; Mendoza et al., 2021; Seguin et al., 2022), education (Baker, 2023; Cao & Henderson, 2021), tourism studies (Skavronskaya et al., 2020), finance (Sie et al., 2016), and psychology (Bernal Marcos et al., 2024; Zittoun et al., 2024) to explore topics such as mental health, experiences of patients with hypertension, higher education decision-making, memorable tourism experiences, everyday financial transactions, and vulnerability. Sociological studies employing digital diary methods remain limited, however, despite this method offering a multitude of benefits to sociologists (Atayee-Bennett, 2025). The methodological approach discussed in this article therefore contributes to existing scholarship and provides insight into how digital diary methods, or more specifically social media-based diary methods, may be successfully employed in social scientific research, and particularly sociological research exploring everyday lived experience.

Social media-based diary methods combine the longstanding diary methods approach (Alaszewski, 2006; Bartlett & Milligan, 2015; Cucu-Oancea, 2013; Hyers, 2018) with social media platforms, and thus respond to contemporary trends and preferences. In recent years, we have witnessed a steep rise in the use and availability of smartphones (Pew Research Center, 2016), as well as a growing preference for digital methods, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic (Bhanye et al., 2024; Kaiser-Grolimund et al., 2024; Ratten, 2023). There is thus much potential to develop this methodological approach in qualitative social research. The aim of this article is to explore the key considerations researchers should reflect upon when designing social media-based diary studies, especially topic-focused ones as explored in this article, to enhance the quality of their research into everyday lived experiences.

Digital Diary Methods

Digital diary methods quite simply refer to diary methods that are conducted via digital means. This could involve online diary platforms like Open Diary (Martinviita, 2016), smartphone apps (Welford et al., 2022), text messaging (Seguin et al., 2022), or even social media platforms, like WhatsApp (Chen & Neo, 2019) and WeChat (Ma & Cai, 2023; Sie et al., 2016; Skavronskaya et al., 2020). Such approaches became increasingly common after the turn of the millennium, as a result of significant advancements in electronic opportunities (Feldman Barrett & Barrett, 2001) and innovations that enhanced the portability of smartphones and laptops (Schrock, 2015). These improvements in accessibility subsequently made them a preferred choice for consumers (Bartlett & Milligan, 2015).

Digital diary methods offer many of the benefits associated with diary methods more broadly, such as improved insight into daily life (Hyers, 2018), especially repetitive behaviors and practices, like eating, that are often taken for granted (Alaszewski, 2006). Additionally, they reduce retrospection errors and recall bias as participants need not rely on memory, thereby making data not only more reliable (Bhanye et al., 2024; Welford et al., 2022), but also more accurate (Cucu-Oancea, 2013). Diary methods are also an optimum choice for gaining insight into both singular experiences and experiences as they evolve (Cucu-Oancea, 2013; Zittoun & Gillespie, 2021). Diaries may thus be conducted over the short-term to gain insight into everyday practices during a specified timeframe (Atayee-Bennett, 2024a), or over the long-term as part of longitudinal research exploring changes over time (Zittoun et al., 2024).

Digital diary methods help to mitigate some of the limitations associated with pen and paper diaries due to enhanced features, such as portability, availability, locatability, and multimediality (Schrock, 2015). A common complaint with paper diaries relates to participants forgetting to complete diary entries, and then either missing or backdating entries (Bolger et al., 2003). Where electronic devices are portable, digital diaries are more accessible, and where notifications are regularly received, it becomes much easier for participants to remember to complete the diaries (Fitz et al., 2019). Further, digital platforms can provide timestamping which allows researchers to verify compliance (Bolger et al., 2003).

A major limitation of diary methods, however, that digital diary methods cannot easily overcome, is finding individuals who are willing and able to keep a diary in the format presented and for the length of time required. Of the participants who do consent to taking part, it is likely that they will not be in the habit of keeping a diary, so persuading them and reminding them to contribute can be a challenge (Alaszewski, 2006). For diaries to be successful therefore, they rely on diarists to be self-disciplined or for the researcher to send regular reminders (Hyers, 2018). Fortunately, social media platforms facilitate this through the ease of sending notifications to participants in real-time (Fitz et al., 2019; Schrock, 2015).

Digital diary methods can cause new limitations to arise, however. Particularly where specifically designed apps are concerned, there is a potential for high costs (Alaszewski, 2006; Cucu-Oancea, 2013) linked to software development and training participants in their use (Welford et al., 2022). These limitations can be overcome by using social media platforms that are free and familiar to participants, like WhatsApp (Chen & Neo, 2019). As such, scholars have emphasized the potential benefits offered by smartphones and social media in qualitative research (Atayee-Bennett, 2025; Kaufmann & Peil, 2020).

The digital divide is also a factor which can hinder the efficacy of digital diary methods. Certain demographics, such as individuals with very low incomes, may face barriers to accessing smartphones, whilst others, like older members of the population, may have low levels of digital literacy and struggle to engage with digital diary methods (Friemel, 2016; Ragnedda, 2017). Across the world, further divides arise, with large swaths of people not having access to a digital device or reliable connection (Seguin et al., 2022) which can hinder the success of digital methods. It is also customary in some developing countries for devices to be shared by various family members (Mendoza et al., 2021), reducing the amount of time participants may have to access an electronic device. Nevertheless, with the predominance of digitality in our social lives today, digital methods remain an excellent choice for qualitative researchers.

Social Media-Based Diary Methods

Whilst digital diary methods are well debated in academic scholarship, the concept of social media-based diary methods is still very much emerging. Studies exploring the use of social media platforms as a site for primary data collection from recruited participants, instead of as a source of secondary data, remain few. Existing studies have reflected upon the benefits of social media when conducting diary methods (Atayee-Bennett, 2025), focus groups (Chen & Neo, 2019), mobile instant messaging interviews (Kaufmann & Peil, 2020), netnographies (Ma & Cai, 2023), and photo elicitation (Lunnay et al., 2015), but further research is essential to enhance the current level of scholarship.

We know from research on social media that it is widespread and popular with a growing number of users across the globe (Statista, 2024). It is theorized in multiple ways, but in brief, it is understood to be a set of applications that facilitate the creation and exchange of content via technological means (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), and which is therefore social and interactive, enabling users to share, co-operate, and communicate with one another (Lovink, 2011; Shirky, 2011).

Social media is commonly accessed via a smartphone, a device which is often carried on one’s person, typically switched on, and connected to the Internet (Ling & Lai, 2016). Such connectivity allows notifications to be pushed to the locked screen of the smartphone in real time, which demand our immediate attention and entice people to click on them (Fitz et al., 2019), in turn opening the social media application. With such high levels of engagement, social media platforms may therefore facilitate increased participant engagement.

Social media fosters real time reporting (Atayee-Bennett, 2025; Bartlett & Milligan, 2015), which is practical for data generation as it can provide enhanced insight into repetitive behaviors, especially those relating to the everyday (Atayee-Bennett, 2025). Additionally, social media enables multiple conversations to occur at once, or for conversations to continue despite time lags (Chen & Neo, 2019). All of these factors offer the participant flexibility, a core value that McCombie et al. (2024a) argue is important for participants when engaging with a qualitative research study. Social media platforms also offer flexibility through their multimedia functions, such as text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, audio, and video (Atayee-Bennett, 2025; Ma & Cai, 2023). Such functions further support participants’ self-expression (McCombie et al., 2024a) and their level of enjoyment whilst taking part (Lunnay et al., 2015). For these reasons and others, I argue that social media platforms offer particular benefits for diary methods (Atayee-Bennett, 2025).

Despite many advantages, social media-based diary methods remain affected by the digital divide (García et al., 2016; Welford et al., 2022) so careful reflection on one’s demographic of interest is important before employing this method. Further, unreliable connectivity can also interrupt interaction and contribution (Seguin et al., 2022), hindering participant engagement. Ethics is another important consideration when designing a social media-based study. Lunnay et al. (2015) reflect on their photo elicitation research on Facebook and discuss the ethical use of social media when conducting qualitative research. They discuss how the question of privacy becomes central since social media platforms are owned by external corporations, and as such, privacy settings are subject to change. Social media platforms also constitute a site where the private meets the public, so researchers must be mindful of participant safety and confidentiality when conducting their research, so as to not expose their participants’ identities. On platforms like Facebook, where ‘friendship’ may be requested, researchers should also reflect on the ethics of this. For example, would ‘friendship’ help to build rapport, what would happen to the friendship after the study, and are there implications for researcher safety which indicate ‘friendship’ should be refused? In this article, I build on these points and contribute my own, providing a list of key considerations that researchers who employ social media-based diary methods should reflect upon to enhance the quality of their study.

Study Details

This article is based on doctoral research which made use of social media-based diary methods, among other methods, to explore the everyday lived experiences of 36 faith vegans in the UK (Atayee-Bennett, 2024a, 2025). This research sought to explore and unpick the intersection between veganism and religion, and it did so through a multiple qualitative methods study employing an interpretivist epistemology.

The central research question was, how are Muslim, Jewish, and Christian vegans reshaping and redefining veganism and religiosity in late modern Great Britain? To tease apart the various aspects of this question, I employed three distinct methods. Semi-structured interviews allowed me to explore understandings, beliefs, and reported experiences, virtual participant observation, i.e., video calls, granted me virtual access to the participants’ kitchens and other domestic spaces where veganism was performed daily, and social media-based diary methods, which were topic-focused, enabled me to explore everyday lived experience. These three methodological approaches allowed me to triangulate my data and obtain detailed empirical insight into the faith vegan experience. Having not been conceptualized before, the objective of this research was to explore faith veganism and its key characteristics, rather than investigate changes over time. As such, the diaries, upon which this article is focused, were singular events, rather than part of an ongoing longitudinal study.

Within my study, social media-based diary methods involved creating private groups for each faith community. I conducted this part of the study in two stages: a pilot stage with the Muslim participants between April and July 2021 and a second stage with the Jewish and Christian participants between July and December 2021. Each group ran for three to four months so as to gain insight into both everyday lived experience and at least one religious festival.

In the pilot stage, I gave the Muslim participants a choice of two platforms to join: a Facebook group or a WhatsApp group. Six participants joined the Facebook group and ten joined the WhatsApp group, with four participants joining both groups. Both groups were active, but WhatsApp was noticeably more so. The Facebook group, perhaps due to having fewer participants, saw less engagement; while a few participants posted diary entries, there was minimal interaction between them. In contrast, the WhatsApp group exhibited significantly higher levels of interaction and discussion among participants.

Due to this experience, I made changes in stage two, namely the omission of the Facebook group, resulting in a requirement to join a WhatsApp group. One Christian participant did however ask to be discounted for social anxiety reasons, so she kept a personal diary on a private WhatsApp chat between the two of us instead. The other Jewish and Christian participants joined the relevant WhatsApp group, and like the Muslim WhatsApp group, these exhibited considerable interaction and discussion among participants.

To help participants and set their expectations, I sent them all some guidance prior to launching the diaries, see Figure 1. This contained a list of ideas pertaining to the faith vegan experience and served as inspiration for what to post. This image was also shared periodically in the diary groups to remind participants what to share.

Figure 1.

Guidance Provided to Jewish Participants With Ideas of What to Submit as Diary Entries. Similar Guidance was Provided to Muslim and Christian Participants

Each week during the data collection period, I transcribed the diary data, compiling the contributions into three Word documents, each one corresponding to each of the faith groups. By the end of the last diary study, I had three completed transcripts which I uploaded to NVivo and coded thematically. I coded these transcripts in the same way as I coded the interview transcripts, drawing out themes and categories which informed my findings and conclusions.

This methodological innovation, characterized by merging diary methods with social media, proved to be very insightful for exploring everyday lived experience, offering a multitude of benefits (Atayee-Bennett, 2025). However, I also identified a number of key considerations that researchers should be mindful of when designing a social media-based diary study, and it to these that I now turn.

Key Considerations for Social Media-Based Diary Methods

Whilst social media-based diary methods are an excellent method for exploring everyday lived experience (Atayee-Bennett, 2025), there are several key considerations to take into account. Here I discuss six such considerations, including (a) choosing a platform, (b) diary design, (c) ethical considerations, (d) cultural considerations, (e) communication, and (f) participant engagement.

Choosing a Platform

Before beginning social media-based diary methods, it is imperative to carefully decide which platform to use. I wanted to conduct my diaries in a group setting, so I needed to select a platform that offered this function in a private manner, so that I could ensure confidentiality. Further, choosing a platform that is already used regularly aids recruitment and participant engagement (Chen & Neo, 2019), as there is less deviation from existing social media use.

As stated previously, I offered the Muslim participants a choice between joining a Facebook group or a WhatsApp group. However, I found there to be comparatively lower engagement in the Facebook group, leading me to only offer a WhatsApp group to the Christian and Jewish participants in stage two. Reasons for the low engagement in the pilot study could have been due to me offering a choice and more participants choosing WhatsApp, or it could have been due to the fact that some participants did not have a Facebook account. When selecting a platform for a diary study, it is imperative therefore to consider the demographics of the research sample and the social media platforms this demographic is more likely to interact with. For example, studies exploring Chinese tourists and consumers have made use of WeChat, the social media platform most commonly used within the Chinese community (Ma & Cai, 2023; Sie et al., 2016; Skavronskaya et al., 2020).

Social media has a diverse multimedia offering (Atayee-Bennett, 2025), but even between platforms, there are strengths and limitations. Whilst Facebook and WhatsApp facilitate a wide variety of media content, other platforms have their own strengths. For example, Instagram favors images and reels, TikTok and YouTube favor reels and videos, and X (formerly Twitter), Threads, and Bluesky are more suited to microblogging. Facebook and WhatsApp offered all functions (text, images, audio, video, and emojis) and thus gave my participants flexibility in how they shared their posts with me (McCombie et al., 2024a). It is important therefore to consider the type of data one wishes to collect, and which social media platform is most suited to amassing this type of data.

Selecting the most appropriate platform for one’s sample’s demographic can contribute to core values such as self-expression (McCombie et al., 2024a) and enjoyment (Lunnay et al., 2015), which in turn improve participant engagement and facilitate the collection of data of both a higher quality and a higher quantity.

Diary Design

When designing a diary study, selecting an appropriate timeframe is vital for both recruitment and engagement. I opted for three months (four months in the case of the Christian diary which was resumed over Christmas) as I wanted to capture both a major religious celebration and significant insight into the everyday. Three months represented a considerable length of time, but not so long it should be a deterrent. With Jewish vegans, however, I found there was lots of interest in my study but upon learning of the diary element, many withdrew their interest due to concerns around the time commitment. The timeframe of the diary can therefore play a central role in recruitment success.

When planning a diary study, consideration also needs to be given to its structure. Hyers (2018) described how diary studies can be structured, whereby questions are asked regularly or a standardized format provided, semi-structured, whereby open-ended questions are posed and some occasional prompts shared by the researcher, or unstructured, whereby minimal instructions are provided, if any at all. My diary study was semi-structured in that I provided guidance upfront, as shown previously in Figure 1, but I also engaged in discussion or asked further questions throughout the data collection period to explore additional topics or seek further insight; this is discussed in a later section.

Another key question to consider when designing a diary study is when one wishes to receive diary entries. Wheeler and Reis (1991) described three approaches: at specific time intervals, such as daily, weekly, or monthly, whenever a specific event takes place, and whenever the researcher sends a question or prompt. My diary study however remained open for the duration of the data collection period, i.e., around three months. Where I was exploring everyday lived experience, any moment could have been of interest to me. It was therefore not possible for me to dictate times of interest, so I had to ensure diary reporting was available at any time. Given the frequency of social media use, it was not an inconvenience to participants to keep the diary study open like this. Rather, it offered them a level of flexibility that can enhance the quality of any such study (McCombie et al., 2024a).

Ethical Considerations

With any qualitative research study, there are ethical considerations to bear in mind, but with social media-based diary methods, there are some additional points to reflect upon. Given that social media platforms are owned by external corporations meaning that settings and features are subject to change, privacy becomes a major factor to consider (Lunnay et al., 2015). In creating a social media account, individuals must agree to the organization’s terms of usage and in so doing, they consent to their data being processed in certain ways (Kaufmann & Peil, 2020). However, these terms of usage are rarely reviewed in full (Obar & Oeldorf-Hirsch, 2020), underscoring the need for researchers to not only be aware of platform-specific policies at the outset but also stay abreast of any updates. Furthermore, when recruiting participants, researchers have a responsibility to conceal their identity and keep their data confidential, as well as consider their safety during data collection. This could involve collecting data in a way that does not expose the participants as being associated with the research or taking steps to ensure participants do not reveal data shared by other participants.

With these considerations in mind, I selected social media platforms that enabled me to fulfil my research objectives whilst also ensuring the privacy of participants. The WhatsApp groups were invite-only so I could control who had access to the group, whilst the way WhatsApp is designed means that others cannot see what WhatsApp groups a person is a member of. Further, data on WhatsApp is automatically encrypted, adding an extra layer of security (WhatsApp, no date). On Facebook, I created private groups that were not visible to the general public; again, they were only accessible via the invite link I shared with participants. As such, individuals outside the study would neither have been able to view the groups nor join them. These decisions protected participants from being identified as part of the research. Privacy features can be updated however, so researchers need to stay up to date (Chen & Neo, 2019).

In diary groups, none of the data can be considered entirely confidential (Chen & Neo, 2019), as the other participants have access to the names and contact details of the other participants, as well as the data they share in the diary group. To mitigate this risk, I added an additional row in the consent forms that all participants had to sign before data collection could commence, stating, “I understand that I must keep the discussions in the private, online group confidential.” In so doing, this became a requirement of participation. To further reinforce this requirement, I shared a document with all of the participants prior to launching the diary groups which contained diary guidelines and housekeeping rules. These included checking the group regularly, contributing regularly, obtaining consent if sharing images of others, keeping discussions confidential, and refraining from unkind or discriminatory language.

Once the consent forms had been signed and the groups were ready to launch, I emailed the invite link to participants so they could join the relevant group. This enabled me to avoid any ethical quandaries concerning other forms of contact. In their Facebook study, Lunnay et al. (2015) created an event page which participants were invited to join. With event pages however, the researchers would need to be ‘friends’ with the participants in order to send an invite link. With Facebook groups and WhatsApp groups however, I did not need to send them a friend request in order to grant them access to the diary group. Whilst Lunnay et al. (2015) reflect on how ‘friendship’ can help to build rapport, I found rapport built up naturally within the groups anyway (Atayee-Bennett, 2025), due to our shared experiences (McCombie et al., 2024a) as faith vegans.

Cultural Considerations

In addition to ethical considerations, there may also be cultural considerations to be mindful of. In Ma and Cai’s (2023) research on Chinese tourists, they found traditional Chinese values, such as keqi (respect for authority) and guanxi (maintaining relations), to be of huge importance to their participants. They had feared this could be a barrier to data collection, but ultimately found WeChat to align with these values and foster their participants’ willingness to contribute. Whilst I did not encounter any challenges in relation to cultural values, there were nevertheless two points worth highlighting.

Orthodox Jews do not use electricity or electrical devices, like smartphones, on the Sabbath (Shabbat) which starts at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. During this period of time, my Orthodox participants did not use their smartphones, and consequently, did not share any diary entries. I was therefore unable to obtain photos of the Friday night meal or any food consumed on Shabbat, since it was not possible for them to take photos during this time. Participants instead shared a written message listing what they had eaten or done after Shabbat had ended. Similar rules were applicable to the holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Where there are cultural rules that can impact one’s participation in the diary study, such as the avoidance of smartphones on holy days, the best one can do is report on one’s experiences after the period of avoidance has ended. This can invite a degree of recall bias and reduced insight for the researcher, due to the lack of visual data, for example. Researchers would need to reflect on whether entries after the event are sufficient or whether the diary should be complemented by in-person ethnography. I was unfortunately unable to incorporate an in-person element during my study as it was conducted at a time when Covid-19 restrictions were still very much in place throughout the UK.

Another cultural observation related to the Muslim group. During Ramadan, the lengthiest WhatsApp discussions were typically during suhoor, the meal before starting one’s fast, and after fajr, the dawn prayer, which, during April, were around 4-5 a.m. This time was typically an opportunity for reflection and connection with God; there were few distractions and a smartphone was likely to be to hand. If a researcher contemplates placing restrictions on the times diary entries can be submitted, it is important to be mindful of periods of activity and engagement.

In contrast, if there is a particular event that a researcher is interested in, which in my case was religious festivities, it is important to be mindful of participants’ other commitments during these times which can reduce engagement with the diary group. Towards the end of Ramadan, Farah posted, “I’m sorry my diary entries slowed a bit this week. I’ve been coming online less. I have been following the daily tafsir by Cambridge mosque.” The final ten nights of Ramadan represent a time of heightened religious importance, so many participants shifted their attention away from my diary study and toward spiritual activities instead. The two Eids were also noticeably quiet, since participants were busy praying in the mosque, hosting family, or visiting family. As a result, I obtained less data than I had hoped for during these times. It is important therefore for the researcher to be mindful of any cultural considerations that may impact engagement with the diary study.

Communication

Before launching the diary study, researchers should ensure participants understand what is expected of them to avoid disappointing results (Seguin et al., 2022). I provided participants with as much information about my research upfront as possible, in the form of a detailed participant information sheet outlining my research and a guidance document explaining the diary study; this included the image depicted in Figure 1. Despite providing as broad a brief as possible (Does it relate to my experience as a Muslim/Jewish/Christian vegan?), as well as multiple prompts which are listed in the image, participants still interpreted different aspects of their everyday life as either relevant or irrelevant for the study and only shared what they considered important.

In response to sending some question prompts at a time when the group had got quiet, Sara shared, “sorry Ellie but my daily routine is pretty boring right now. I just went to the garden center to buy some stuff for our vegetable garden.” Here, we see Sara’s interpretations and assumptions affecting her contributions. In interpreting her daily routine as boring and assuming that her daily activities were not of relevance or interest to my study, she had not shared much. Perhaps if I had not asked what participants had been doing recently, she would not even have shared that she went to the garden center and was working on her vegetable garden. Three minutes later, she added,

Just one question: how much do you want us to share about what we are doing and where we are going? So far I have only really shared things which I thought were relevant to the vegan experience - but I’m not the researcher and don’t want to induce some form of bias in your study, so if you want us to share what we’ve done in a day, even if not directly related to veganism, please let me know!

Even though I had strived to communicate as clearly with my participants as possible and keep the brief open and broad, participants still applied a layer of interpretation, sharing only what they considered relevant to the study. Such decision-making is important since everyday experience technically relates to every moment of one’s life and it is not possible to share everything. Participants reached such decisions based on their understanding and interpretation of the study itself, so as much clarity as possible should be shared with participants upfront, with additional clarification provided where necessary. This fosters open communication, a value participants regard as important when taking part in qualitative research (McCombie et al., 2024a).

A strength of digital diary methods is researcher presence (Atayee-Bennett, 2025), but it is important to strike a balance. To ensure participants saw everything that was posted, I asked them at the start of the study to adjust their settings to enable all notifications. I asked this of them, firstly, to ensure they did not miss any of my communications, and secondly, because receiving notifications, particularly when others shared diary entries, would help maintain a consistent focus on the diary group, potentially enhancing participant engagement. However, frequent notifications could also have an adverse effect, such as overwhelm. This is particularly true when notifications come from the researcher, since contacting participants too frequently or seeking excessive clarification from them can place increased demands on their time (Mendoza et al., 2021) and reduce their motivation to engage with the study. Given the frequency with which social media platforms send notifications (Fitz et al., 2019), notifications from other participants should not have been significantly different from those received in other group chats participants may have been part of, so the main consideration was notifications from myself. Researchers should continually reflect on their own engagement in the study and maintain both a constant presence but a respectful distance. In this way, participants will have more freedom over their own contributions and should feel empowered to engage in the study in ways that work for them. In my own study, I gave detailed guidance upfront in order to facilitate spontaneous diary writing, but when the groups got quiet or when further information was needed, I would ask a question or reshare the list of prompts. On the whole, I maintained the status of a quiet observer, but from time to time, I became more of an active researcher seeking to solicit additional information and insight, much in the same way as an interviewer would ask probing questions in an interview (Rubin & Rubin, 2012).

Participant Engagement

Participants are rarely in the habit of keeping a diary so remembering to share entries can be challenging (Alaszewski, 2006). As such, participant engagement has been reported as a limitation in all forms of diary methods, and it remains a key consideration for social media-based diary methods. Participants are however likely to be in the habit of engaging with social media, so selecting a social media platform as the site of the diary study can help to mitigate this. Indeed, scholars have surmised that participant engagement may be aided by digital methods due to the widespread adoption of and preference for digital technologies (Mendoza et al., 2021). Further, digital devices, and particularly social media, align with participants’ needs and values, such as flexibility and self-expression (McCombie et al., 2024a) and can therefore foster a sense of enjoyment in taking part (Lunnay et al., 2015).

As discussed previously, receiving notifications from others could help to keep participants focused on the diaries and remind them to post, but it does not necessarily guarantee that participants will actually post entries, however. At times when the diary groups get quiet, the researcher will therefore need to be proactive in reminding participants. Since social media allows the researcher to maintain a quiet presence, they can share gentle reminders and build rapport with the participants, which can encourage improved engagement without being too forceful. Successful diaries are reliant in part therefore on proactive researchers who gently nudge the participants (Hyers, 2018).

Diary-keeping behavior can be impacted by external factors too, however. If a participant undergoes distress in their personal lives, this may impact their motivation to contribute to the study (Bartlett, 2012; Mendoza et al., 2021). In my study, Beth became inactive for some time before posting in the group,

‘Hi all. Haven’t posted for a while. Been feeling a bit of guilt and shame. On Monday I took [son] to our Church kids outing to [a farm adventure park] […] I felt really awful for taking him somewhere I disagree with just to “fit in” with the other church parents and so he didn’t feel left out.’

Beth’s “guilt and shame” prevented her from contributing to the diary group for a short while, as she had to process her emotions and regain her sense of self. Unpleasant issues such as this could arise at any time in a person’s life so the risk of reduced engagement is ever present.

When I launched my diary groups, I assumed participant engagement would be a challenge, so I did not expect participants to share quite as much as they did. On a more positive note then, engagement can be aided by the topic itself. Given that veganism and religion were largely undiscussed in academia and the vegan community more broadly, my participants expressed a desire to contribute to the advancement of this field; such a desire aligns with the core value of meaningful impact that McCombie et al. (2024a) argue is important for participants when participating in qualitative research. I suspect this played a key role in achieving both quantity and quality in my study, with the diary groups producing lengthy transcripts, comprised of detailed reflections, visual data, and group discussions. Other researchers have spoken of the need to incentivize their participants or foster a sense of ownership in the diary design in a bid to improve engagement (Welford et al., 2022), but I did not encounter such challenges. In exploring a topic close to one’s heart, values, and ethics, many participants were motivated to contribute, despite no offer of reward.

As a researcher, this was a very pleasant surprise, but when examining all three diary groups, it was apparent that the level of engagement was not the same in all. The Christian participants shared the most by far, with the Jewish participants posting considerably less in comparison; the reasons for this difference could be numerous. When designing a social media-based diary study, therefore, it is important to reflect on the factors that might enhance participant engagement, such as the topic, accessibility, and alignment with participant values, as well as the factors that could inhibit participant engagement, such as culture, habits, or life circumstances, all of which have been discussed previously.

Conclusion

Diary methods is an excellent method for exploring everyday lived experience, but methodological studies exploring the potential of social media for conducting diary methods remain minimal. In my research drawing on social media-based diary methods, I find numerous benefits to this method, each serving to increase the accuracy and validity of data collected, as well as offering the researcher greater insight into everyday lived experience (Atayee-Bennett, 2025).

Despite a plethora of benefits, there are nevertheless some key considerations that researchers must reflect upon when planning social media-based diary methods. These include platform choice, diary design, ethical considerations, cultural considerations, clear communication, and maintaining participant engagement. Rather than presenting these as potential limitations to social media-based diary methods, I suggest they are better thought of as considerations that, when addressed appropriately, can serve to strengthen the diary design and facilitate insightful findings.

Selecting an appropriate platform that aligns with the research objectives, is used by the sample’s demographics, and facilitates the collection of the desired type of data is imperative for ensuring the success of the study. Consideration should also be given to the privacy settings of the platform and how well it facilitates participant and researcher safety, as well as anonymity and confidentiality. The selected social media platform will become a site for data collection, and whilst a virtual site, it can still be unsafe or exposing, so steps need to be taken to prevent any harm in its various forms.

Designing the diary study is important too. The researcher adopts the role of a guide who needs to put certain structures in place so as to steer participants toward sharing relevant information and insights. First and foremost, an appropriate timeframe is necessary to aid with recruitment and engagement, whilst the structure of the diary and the expected frequency of posts will help participants to respond appropriately to the brief. Communication is a big part of this, and another responsibility the researcher ought to give due consideration to. Communication must be clear from the outset, but prompts and additional guidance will most likely be welcome later too. In social media-based diary methods, the researcher is ever present, but they should maintain a respectful distance to empower participants to share information relating to their everyday lived experiences.

Whilst a well-designed study will foster participant engagement, the researcher must still be mindful of limiting factors, such as culture, existing habits, and life circumstances which can all inhibit the contribution of diary entries. Are there any cultural practices that could affect diary-keeping behavior? Do participants have any habits or engage in any activities that could help or hinder their contributions? These questions are useful to reflect upon during the planning stage, as interventions can be implemented to help overcome any issues. Some events may be unforeseen however, such as mental health challenges, illness, and bereavement, and these will inevitably take their toll on diary-keeping behavior, potentially even causing the participant to become inactive for long periods of time. Researchers should reflect on the implications of this for their own study and whether additional research should be undertaken to mitigate the effects of prolonged inactivity.

If all of these factors are sufficiently addressed in the planning stage and sufficiently reviewed throughout the duration of data collection with appropriate adjustments made, the quality of the diary study can be enhanced, facilitating the collection of more detailed and more insightful data.

This article advances existing studies on diary methods (Bartlett & Milligan, 2015; Hyers, 2018) and the use of social media in qualitative data collection (Chen & Neo, 2019; Kaufmann & Peil, 2020; Ma & Cai, 2023) to explore the key considerations researchers should reflect upon when designing social media-based diary studies. Whilst this article offers a promising foundation for such methodology, more research is needed on the topic. This is especially so within sociology, which has long overlooked the potential of diary methods for exploring everyday lived experience.

Limitations associated with this study relate to its small sample size and its focus exclusively on the UK context. Additionally, by focusing solely on WhatsApp and Facebook groups, the findings are limited to these platforms, and their applicability to others remains speculative. Future research could consider other contexts, although studies have begun to consider digital diary methods in developing countries (Mendoza et al., 2021; Seguin et al., 2022), or other platforms, especially popular ones such as TikTok and Instagram. Additionally, future projects could adopt a longitudinal element, thereby deriving even greater insight into everyday lived experiences.