In the summer of 2026 we hosted a session on breathing new life into your Community for pre-arrival, covering why this summer period covered was the perfect moment to reset your Community. These learnings and takeaways can apply to any point in the cycle, when you feel that your Community could do with a reset!
Community Reset for Pre-Arrival: Session Recap
Why Now: Shifting Student Engagement
Younger students increasingly engage with online spaces by observing rather than posting - a pattern often described as "lurking" or legitimate peripheral participation. Research across online communities generally shows engagement following a 90–9–1 pattern: around 90% mostly observe, about 9% contribute occasionally, and roughly 1% are persistent, regular creators.
This matters for how you think about success. A student is far more likely to judge their Community experience as successful based on whether it helped them personally - found the information they needed, made a friend, learned something new - rather than by posting volume. That's difficult to quantify directly, but conversation summaries (and now Social Matching data) help bring some of that value into view.
Introducing Social Matching (Launching Mid-August, 2026)
Students receive three matches a week, based on their country, course of study, and interests/hobbies from their profile
The goal is to surface potential connections immediately, rather than requiring students to search for them
New dashboard data will show how many connections are actually being made - counting both matches that led to direct messages and thread replies within Spaces
With this launching around 13 August 2026 (Results Day in England, Wales and Northern Ireland), it's a natural moment to reset your Community: clear out digital clutter, refresh it for this point in the cycle, and get more students active so there's more to measure.
A note on embargo: hold off posting and pick this up once embargo lifts. The general advice for UK institutions is unchanged - treat Community like any other comms channel, so if you wouldn't send it by email or post it on social media, don't post it in Community either.
The Community Reset: Four Areas to Focus On
1. Refresh Your To-Do's
Aim for roughly 8–10 To-Do's live at any one time in each Community. Consolidate where you can rather than letting the list grow unmanageable
Break any long task (30–45+ minutes) into smaller "micro" steps
Remove anything no longer relevant - e.g. Clearing-specific to-do's that don't apply to students who've been on the journey longer
Use clear, jargon-free titles, and consider adding a time estimate to the description so students can decide whether they have the time and energy right now
Emojis in the title can help visually categorise different types of To-Do
Add a link wherever there's a next step - don't make students hunt for it
2. Reveal Through Updates
Updates is your one-way broadcast channel, pinned to the top of every student's inbox. Admins and ambassadors can post; students can only view
It doesn't have to be purely logistical - use it to build excitement about campus life and what's coming up
Packing lists are consistently the most popular piece of content each summer, and work well as a bulleted, mobile-friendly checklist
Both staff and student ambassadors can post in Updates - consider agreeing a check-first process, or handing the channel to an ambassador for a day for an 'Updates takeover'
3. Reshape Your Spaces
Name Spaces to reflect what a student would want to join, not like an institutional department name
You have 200 characters for a Space description - don't repeat the Space name, use this to build trust and set expectations for what a student can expect inside
If you're using a Space for Results Day or pre-arrival questions, make sure it's actively staffed by ambassadors or team members
Remove or rename Spaces aimed at prospective/considering applicants who are now firm offer holders; consolidate spaces that serve a similar purpose
4. Reinvite Your Members
Prioritise re-inviting students who haven't yet joined - people often don't take action the first time they're invited
If you use Private Invite, re-export your not-yet-joined list and resend
If you use your own comms with a shareable invite link or QR code, use your own tracking data to identify who hasn't joined yet
Segment your lists: conditions met but not joined; invited but not joined; recent Clearing/new offer holders who haven't had a touchpoint yet
The bulk delete/remove feature lets you upload a list of email addresses - useful for removing students who didn't meet their offer conditions
Build a weekly review habit (5–15 minutes) looking at Community through a first-time student's eyes rather than your own
What's Working For Our Unibuddy Partners
SMS invites alongside email - not a native Community feature, but sending the unique Community link by text consistently boosts invite acceptance rates
Results Day, pre-arrival, and accommodation-confirmation momentum naturally boosts uptake - use this natural momentum to encourage joiners
Academic/tutor nudges to join Community, segmented by department with a copy-paste invite template, adds a personal touch that performs well alongside general marketing sequences
Social proof and urgency - showing how many future classmates or housemates are already active creates a "don't miss out" effect
Time-bound framing (e.g. framing Community as building a social safety net before the move to university) outperforms open-ended messaging
Embedding Community into existing touchpoints - accommodation confirmations, offer confirmations, Clearing confirmations - makes use of emails students are already opening
Accommodation-focused spaces: keep these broader (not split by flat/floor) and let Private Groups handle close-knit sub-groups; "find your flatmates" is one of the strongest hooks, and it's worth deciding upfront whether you'll resource an accommodation community year-round (many institutions do)
Live Q&A / "Ask Me Anything" sessions with ambassadors - promote them in advance via To-Do's and Updates, and don't shy away from high-friction topics like housing shortages; transparency builds trust
Micro-Surveys outperform Polls when they're serious and institutional (enrolment status, accommodation sign-up) rather than lighthearted. One example: an enrolment-related survey drew 156 responses, versus 2 for a lighthearted World Cup Micro-Survey. Only survey what you intend to act on, and close the feedback loop by sharing results back with students
Don't forget commuter students - a dedicated space for practical logistics (travel passes, coordinating journeys) helps reduce isolation; consider involving commuter ambassadors and creating a communications segment for these students using postcode or accommodation status (i.e. local postcode + no accommodation booked).
Common Questions
Updates vs. To-Do's: Updates is the broadcast/story channel for announcements and things to know; To-Do's is the task list of things a student needs to complete to enrol and arrive
Can To-Do's be scoped to specific communities? Yes - if you run separate communities, to-do's can be made community-specific. Within a single shared community, all groups will see the same list
Should ambassadors be in every space? Best practice is generally to keep ambassadors concentrated in one dedicated space, with selective placement elsewhere (e.g. a commuter space, or a space tied to their course) where their lived experience genuinely adds value. Too many ambassadors spread across spaces can feel like "plants" and dampen natural student-to-student conversation
Your Plan on a Page
Pull your lists: joined vs. not yet joined, invited vs. not yet accepted
Decide whether to remove students who didn't meet offer conditions (bulk delete is now available)
Refresh Spaces: retire anything outdated, rename for this stage of the cycle
Trim and refresh To-Do's to a current, concise list
Increase your Updates cadence through pre-arrival (pausing only if you're under a results embargo)
Recordings of this and other past sessions are available on demand in our Unibuddy Help Centre, under Unibuddy On Demand.