Aerotek

Positioning Aerotek For A New Era: A Comprehensive Approach to Evaluating and Strategizing for Increased Engagement and Reach

Client: Aerotek
Sector: Staffing & Recruitment (Construction + Manufacturing Industries Focus)
Offering: Social Media Marketing Audit, Strategy Development, Content Marketing, Audience Personas

Background & Objectives

In 2021, Aerotek realigned to exclusively serve the labor focused sectors—staffing and recruitment for construction, manufacturing, engineering, and logistics. To capitalize on this refined focus, Aerotek engaged What Works Studio (WWS) to:

• Audit Current Social Media: Understand how the shift in target segments (from broad staffing to industrial talent and employers) affected engagement and reach.

• Develop a Data-Driven Strategy: Create channel-specific tactics for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter to connect with industrial candidates and hiring managers.

• Define Clear Personas: Refine audience segmentation so that content and messaging resonate with both talent seekers (hiring managers, HR directors) and talent candidates (skilled industrial workers, technicians, engineers).

Discovery & Audit

• Kickoff & Stakeholder Session

• Facilitated a one-day workshop with Aerotek’s marketing, recruitment, and operations leads to align on business goals, key audiences, and prior social media performance metrics.

• Content Performance Review

• Extracted and categorized all 2021 posts across primary channels distinct types (photos, photo series, videos, media mentions, articles, etc.) and by twenty-three distinct topics (safety tips, skill development, holiday posts, company news, etc).

• Measured engagement (likes, comments, shares), reach, and click-through rates, pinpointing top-performing content themes.

• Engagement Analysis by Segment

• Mapped post metrics to two audience segments:

• Industrial Talent (Candidates): Active job seekers in manufacturing, HVAC, warehousing, etc.

• Business Clients (Hiring Managers/HR): Companies seeking skilled workers in industrial and technical roles.

• Identified that “worker success stories” and “industry trend insights” drove the highest engagement among candidate audiences, while “client case studies” and “industry compliance updates” resonated with hiring managers.

• Competitor Benchmarking & Trend Research

• Evaluated 6 direct competitors in industrial staffing for content cadence, post format, and topic mix. Noted best practices such as behind-the-scenes facility tours (video) and short “day-in-the-life” employee spotlights.

• Researched emerging social media trends—short-form video, live Q&A sessions, and interactive polls—to inform future recommendations.

Audience Personas & Strategy Development

Audience Persona Development
To sharpen our social media focus on both industrial talent and hiring organizations, we relied on insights gathered directly from Aerotek’s staffing professionals and internal data analysis:

• Internal Expert Interviews:

• Met with Aerotek recruiters and account managers who work daily with manufacturing, logistics, and technical clients. These staffing professionals shared firsthand observations of candidate motivations—such as job stability and skill development—and client priorities like reducing time-to-fill and ensuring regulatory compliance.

• Data Analysis from Existing Channels:

• Reviewed Aerotek’s social media performance data to identify patterns in what content attracted qualified candidates (e.g., safety tutorials, skill-up videos) and what resonated with hiring managers (e.g., client success stories, labor-market insights).

• Cross-referenced referral traffic and click‐throughs from social posts to actual job applications and client inquiries, highlighting which topics prompted the most action.

• Segmentation & Profiling:

• Cross‐checked recruitment team feedback with performance metrics to group audience segments by shared characteristics (for example, mid-career skilled operators who engage with short instructional videos versus HR directors who click on industry-specific case studies).

• Outlined each segment’s central needs—such as “upskilling resources” for candidates and “compliance updates” for clients—and their preferred platforms.

• Persona Framework:

• Synthesized these insights into streamlined profiles that inform content decisions without over‐specifying demographics. Each framework captures primary challenges (e.g., finding steady shifts, maintaining regulatory compliance), content preferences (e.g., brief skill demonstrations vs. data-driven whitepapers), and platform habits (e.g., Instagram for candidates, LinkedIn for hiring managers).

By anchoring persona creation in Aerotek’s internal expertise and social performance data, we ensured that all subsequent content strategies were tightly aligned with the realities of both industrial job seekers and the organizations that hire them.

Channel‐Specific Strategy Development
Rather than prescribing exact post counts or content categories upfront, we followed a structured process to tailor recommendations for each social channel based on performance data, staffing‐team insights, and emerging trends:

• Review of Existing Channel Metrics

• Compiled engagement and reach data for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube from the prior three years.

• Compared post formats (videos, graphics, articles) and topics (job openings, industry tips, client success stories) to see what resonated best on each platform.

• Internal Expert Input

• Held working sessions with Aerotek’s social media manager and recruitment leads to understand which types of content drove candidate applications versus client inquiries.

• Discussed with recruiters the channels where they most often engaged with candidates (e.g., Instagram Stories for younger operators) and with account managers the channels where they pitched to hiring managers (e.g., LinkedIn).

• Audience Preferences & Best Practices

• Referenced current best practices for each network—such as the growing importance of short‐form video on Instagram, the value of thought leadership articles on LinkedIn, and real‐time updates on Twitter.

• Aligned those insights with Aerotek’s two key audiences: job seekers and hiring organizations/managers.

• Guideline Formation

• For each channel, drafted high‐level guidelines that balanced data and resource capacity:

• On visual‐first platforms (Facebook & Instagram), emphasize more video storytelling—showing “a day in the life” at a client site or quick safety tutorials—while maintaining a consistent posting rhythm.

• For LinkedIn, recommend longer‐form, data‐driven posts—such as brief client case summaries or articles on workforce trends—so Aerotek’s thought leadership would surface in target feeds.

• On Twitter, focus on concise news updates (labor‐market stats, regulatory changes) and live commentary of key industry events to keep the brand top of mind for hiring managers and industry watchers.

• For YouTube, propose episodic video content (e.g., “Skill Boost” tutorials and occasional “Client Profile” interviews) that can feed shorter clips to other channels.

• Ongoing Calibration

• Built in monthly checkpoints to compare actual engagement against these guidelines and adjust priorities—for example, shifting a greater share of resources toward video if watch‐time metrics continued to climb, or reallocating LinkedIn budget toward sponsored content if organic reach dipped.

By focusing on a repeatable framework—data review, internal input, best‐practice alignment, guideline creation, and regular tune-ups—we established channel‐specific strategies that could evolve as Aerotek’s audiences and priorities changed, rather than locking in rigid posting quotas or content lists.

• Content Calendar & Editorial Guidelines

• Established a content calendar for Q1–Q2 2022, aligning post themes with industry events (e.g., National Manufacturing Day, OSHA updates) and Aerotek recruitment cycles.

• Provided editorial guidelines (tone, length, format) to ensure consistency—friendly and informative for candidates; professional and data-driven for clients.

Execution & Ongoing Collaboration

• Immediate Implementation (Q1 2022)

• Recommended new posting cadence across channels

• Provided ongoing support and insights for implementation of additional recommendations

• SEO-Optimized Content & Video Production

• Established and maintain shared content calendar and publishing tracker

• Produced weekly blog posts optimized for relevant keywords 

• Created accompanying short-form videos (60-90 seconds) for distribution on company website and social media channels to traffic to the website.

• Performance Tracking & Iteration

• Host bi-weekly meetings to manage content production and optimization.

Results & Impact

• Audit Impact:

• The in-depth social media audit uncovered underperforming content categories and optimized Aerotek’s editorial workflow—reducing content production time by ~20% while aligning every post with core audience needs before any new campaigns launched.

• Content Production Overall Reach & Engagement:

• Generated 1.5 million+ impressions across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube in year one.

• Achieved nearly 800,000 unique views, doubling visibility compared to the prior six-month period.

• Secured 30,000+ social engagements (likes, comments, shares), lifting engagement by over 40% year-over-year.

• Drove 11,900+ website clicks from social channels—an increase of 65%—fueling candidate applications and client inquiries.

• Engagement Rate:

• Delivered an overall engagement rate of ≈2.0%, outperforming the 1.2% industry benchmark for staffing firms.

• Content Performance Highlights:

• “Skill Boost” video series averaged 8,500 views per upload and contributed to 1,000+ direct recruiter contacts.

• Client-focused articles on LinkedIn saw a 60% lift in reach and generated 500+ inbound requests for partnership discussions.

These results demonstrate how our upfront audit and data-driven content strategy not only tightened Aerotek’s messaging but also set the stage for sustained growth—translating social engagement directly into measurable recruitment and sales opportunities.

Key Takeaways

• Data-Driven Tactics Work: Categorizing content by audience and post type (video vs. graphic vs. article) allowed Aerotek to double down on high-performing formats.

• Persona-Focused Messaging: Messages tailored to well-defined personas led to higher engagement and stronger referral traffic to landing pages.

• Consistency & Cadence Matter: Sticking to a predictable posting schedule buils audience trust and routine engagement.

• Ongoing Optimization: Monthly performance reviews ensures continuous refinement—e.g., shifting from long text posts to shorter videos when attention metrics dipped.

Testimonial

“What Works recently provided us with an in-depth audit of our multiple social media platforms which included current trends, competitor analysis, platform analysis and recommendations. To produce this, they carefully analyzed our data and were constantly in touch with us as they developed the analysis, ensuring that all the details were accurate, and thus producing a hyper-relevant audit. Since we are in our social platforms on a day-to-day basis, having another eye on our strategy and data shed light on insights that were in our peripheral. We will be incorporating many of their insights and recommendations into our social strategy and greatly value their partnership!”  -Alyssa Y., Marketing Specialist with Aerotek

By combining a thorough social media audit, detailed audience personas, and a data-driven content strategy, What Works enabled Aerotek to significantly expand its reach and engagement among industrial candidates and client decision-makers—setting the stage for ongoing growth in a competitive staffing landscape.