It’s official: Results Day is over!

Universities across the UK have put in hours of hard work to help students through what can be an incredibly difficult and important time of their lives.

We wanted to celebrate some of the best content from across the sector - and why it works so well. Find the content links by clicking on the images!

📱University of Portsmouth

Portsmouth’s guide to a Clearing phone call has been widely applauded - for good reason. This is an excellent piece of empathetic content. It’s supportive, educational and, most importantly, pitched at the right level. The team have shown real understanding of students and the rollercoaster of results.

✉️ Nottingham Trent University

Students can spend valuable time stuck in call queues, or working out their next step in the Clearing process. Which is where Nottingham Trent’s Priority comes in - guiding students through. This post, using a green screen filter (a staple for brands on the platform) and a sound about heaven hits the sweet spot of both entertaining and informative.

✨ University of Greenwich

Showstoppers Greenwich are back at it again, creating super shareable content to highlight that they have places in Clearing. They’ve used a trend to keep the delivery lighthearted, too. Combined with their Confirmation content (anyone else hoping for a visit from the lucky pigeon?) shows that they really get TikTok as a platform and their prospective student audience.

🏆 Imperial College London

Building community and connection with new students is one of the core aims of Confirmation and Clearing campaigns. Imperial’s Instagram giveaway - promising a haul for a winning new student. It’s a great way to share a practical welcome gift while reminding new students to engage with your social media channels!

🎥 Anglia Ruskin University

Here, Anglia Ruskin turned their Clearing campaign into an online event. Instead of hoping their audiences tuned in at the right time or found their content on their feed, they’re directing prospective students to planned activities. They’ve clearly considered the different audiences on each channel and what functionality they have at their disposal.

🕶 University of Gloucestershire

We all know the recipe, right: get a couple of people from across campus, ideally including senior leadership, and ask them to say good luck to prospective students ahead of Results Day. Gloucestershire took this tried-and-tested approach and created a masterpiece. Using sunglasses to share the message added a quickness and a sense of whimsy to the post.

⬇️ University of Essex

This year, Essex really understood the assignment. Their fantastic flowchart of what to do on Results Day provides clear instructions to nervous or unsure students, helping them decide their next steps. They kept a clear focus on how prospective students could find a place at Essex, while hyping up those who’d already secured their spot.

🎓Keele University

Results Day is usually a Thursday - and this year, Keele decided to throw it back. They’ve decided to focus on the history and community of the University, while including their alumni in their messaging. Instead of focusing on individual stories of students who’ve joined through Clearing, Keele showed some of their students and focused on what really matters: education.

🎫 Loughborough University

As always, Loughborough’s golden tickets were out in force. This print campaign has been running for years, but how they’ve incorporated it into their digital plans and kept engagement high year-on-year is impressive. It’s still the gold-standard (pun fully intended) for Confirmation & Clearing campaigns.

🐶 Birmingham City University

A special shout-out needs to go to Birmingham City, for including all members of their community in their Confirmation and Clearing activity. Dogs at graduation is a content classic, but this is the first time we’ve seen dogs at Clearing. Next year, you’ll need to get them a headset!

So, what have we learnt?

This year, we’ve noticed a number of trends:

Emphasis on Clearing, not Confirmation: Lots of universities have focused on recruitment, rather than celebrating with new students this year. It’s a big shift away from pre-COVID campaigns with tailored responses to new students asking about their course or interests. Most universities shared one or two congratulatory posts, often accompanied by a nice image of their campus or photo of existing students. It’ll be interesting to see how many lean into short-form video functionality like stitches and duets in future.
Traditional posts need not apply: It’s been a while since any of us saw a chronological feed on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram - and some platforms, like TikTok, have never offered it as an option. So posts announcing if phone lines are open, a staple of the Clearing content plan, need to evolve to match. Whether it’s focusing on options like Stories or swapping to one pinned post with opening times for the first week, just because content worked in the past it, doesn’t mean it will work now.
Calling content creators: Increasingly, universities need to think about on-screen talent to be the face of their activity. Some universities have started to dip their toe in - either with a student ambassador programme or using their social media staff. To maintain long-term sustainability, content creators need to have presenting work recognised in their job roles.

Want to chat about how you can evolve your Confirmation and Clearing content next year? Get in touch with us to see how we might be able to help.

Our favourite clearing campaigns