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In light of issues such as increasing unit nonresponse in surveys, several studies argue that social media sources such as Twitter can be used as a viable alternative. However, there are also a number of shortcomings with Twitter data such as questions about its representativeness of the wider population and the inability to validate whose data you are collecting. A useful way forward could be to combine survey and Twitter data to supplement and improve both. To do so, consent within a survey is first needed. This study explores the consent decisions in three large representative surveys of the adult British population to link Twitter data to survey responses and the impact that demographics and survey mode have on these outcomes. Findings suggest that consent rates for data linkage are relatively low, and this is in part mediated by mode, where face-to-face surveys have higher consent rates than web versions. These findings are important to understand the potential for linking Twitter and survey data but also to the consent literature generally.

The literature on the effects of incentives in survey research is vast and covers a diversity of survey modes. The mode of probability-based online panels, however, is still young and so is research into how to best recruit sample units into the panel. This paper sheds light on the effectiveness of a specific type of incentive in this context: a monetary incentive that is paid conditionally upon panel registration within two weeks of receiving the initial postal mail invitation. We tested early bird cash incentives in a large-scale recruitment experiment for the German Internet Panel (GIP) in 2018. We find that panel response rates are significantly higher when offering early bird cash incentives and that fieldwork progresses considerably faster, leading to fewer reminders and greater cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, sample representativeness is similarly high with or without early bird incentives. Die Literatur über die Auswirkungen von Anreizen in der Umfrageforschung ist umfangreich und umfasst eine Vielzahl von Erhebungsmodi. Der Modus der "probability-based online panels" ist jedoch noch jung und damit auch die Forschung darüber, wie man am besten Stichprobeneinheiten für das Panel rekrutiert. Die vorliegende Arbeit beleuchtet die Wirksamkeit einer bestimmten Art von Anreiz in diesem Zusammenhang: ein monetärer Anreiz, der unter der Bedingung gezahlt wird, dass sich die Panelteilnehmer*innen innerhalb von zwei Wochen nach Erhalt der ersten postalischen Einladung registrieren. Die Autor*innen haben Frühbucheranreize in einem groß angelegten Rekrutierungsexperiment für das Deutsche Internetpanel (GIP) im Jahr 2018 getestet. Sie stellen fest, dass die Panel-Response-Raten signifikant höher sind, wenn Frühbucher-Boni angeboten werden, und dass die Feldarbeit deutlich schneller voranschreitet, was zu weniger Erinnerungsschreiben und einer höheren Kosteneffizienz führt. Außerdem ist die Repräsentativität der Stichprobe mit und ohne Frühbucherprämie ähnlich hoch.