What do people first notice when they open your Instagram profile? Your bio information and, of course, one of the most useful Instagram features: Instagram Highlights! They are front and center on your profile, serving as perfect indicators of your brand. You can showcase the best Instagram Stories, re-share with your followers, and build a user-generated content highlight as social proof of your brand quality.
It is an incredible tool to showcase your best content and keep it accessible beyond the 24-hour Story lifespan. Whether you are a business looking to highlight products, promotions, and testimonials or an individual sharing memorable moments, Highlights provides a neat and organized way to keep your profile dynamic and engaging.
With the right approach, highlights can significantly enhance your social media strategy, driving more engagement and allowing you to display your brand’s unique personality and value creatively. From how do you make highlights on Instagram to tips to optimize your highlights, everything is covered for you. Let’s get started!
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What Is Instagram Highlights?
It’s well-known that Instagram Stories vanish after 24 hours. Instagram introduced the Highlights feature to allow users to save and pin these Stories on their profiles. Highlights let you keep your Stories on your Instagram feed for as long as you want.
Ig Highlights are groups of Stories you can create as folder sections on your profile. After posting a Story, you can save it to a Highlight, where it will appear on your profile. You can also activate the Archive option to save Stories and create Highlights from your archived content automatically.
The core attributes of Highlights include:
Highlights Cover: Add a custom image or icon to represent the topic of the saved Stories.
Highlights Name: Name the Highlight, just like naming folders.
Once created, Highlights appear on your profile screen, right below your bio and profile photo. You can also take inspiration from various Instagram ideas to create your desired highlight and covers
FYI: You can automatically embed an Instagram widget with a social media aggregator to bring your website to life with fresh content.
Why Are Instagram Highlights So Important?
Instagram Stories have become a key channel for brands to connect, engage, and achieve significant results in their digital marketing efforts. Mastering Instagram Stories for business has been a huge competitive advantage in your marketing strategy.
That’s why saving high-quality story videos or images for future followers to view anytime makes the Highlights feature invaluable for community managers and digital marketers.
Here are the main reasons to use Highlights:
- Tell an Ongoing Story: Use Highlights to keep your audience engaged with a continuous narrative.
- Increase Content Accessibility: Make the content of your stories accessible to new followers at any time.
- Educate Followers: Share previous activities posted in your stories to educate new followers about your brand.
- Showcase Products or Services: Instagram highlights display your products or services in a structured and categorized manner.
- Create a Content Library: Provide a library of useful content you’ve already shared, making it easily accessible to your audience.
How To Make Highlights On Instagram?
As mentioned above, there are two ways to create Instagram Story Highlights:
- Create Highlights from Active Stories: Post a story and manually save it in a Highlight.
- Create Highlights from Archived Stories: You can automatically save your stories in the archive if you have the Archive option activated. You can then choose which stories to organize into a Highlight.
Create Highlights from Active Stories
If you have an active story and want to add it to Instagram Highlights, follow these steps:
- Select your active story to view it.
- Tap the “Highlight” option at the bottom.
- Click the plus icon to add a new Highlight..
- Enter a name for the new Highlight.
- Tap the blue “Add” button.
Once done, your new Highlight will appear on your profile, allowing your followers to view it even after the story’s 24-hour lifespan.
Create Highlights from Archived Stories
You can also create Highlights from your archived stories. Follow these steps to add stories from your archive to a Highlight and pin them on your profile:
- Navigate to your Instagram profile and select “Story Highlights” beneath your bio.
- Tap the plus icon.
- In the new window, choose the stories you wish to add to the Highlight and press “Next.”
- Tap “Edit Cover” to choose which story will appear as the Highlight icon or upload an icon.
- Enter a name for your Instagram Highlights.
- Tap “Add” (iPhone) or “Done” (Android).
You can easily create and manage Instagram Highlights by following these steps, ensuring your best content is always accessible to your followers. You can also use a highlights cover for Instagram to make your highlights more appealing.
Best Ways to Use IG Highlights for Business
People often discover small businesses through social media, so Instagram business accounts should showcase essential resources like they would on their websites. Here are some of the best ways to leverage Instagram Highlights for your business:
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Highlight Business Information
Use Instagram Highlights to showcase important business information such as return policies, opening hours, menus, mission statements, and FAQs. This keeps essential details easily accessible and prominently displayed on your profile, ensuring customers can quickly find and understand key aspects of your business.
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Highlight Events and Announcements
Use Instagram Highlights to feature weekly updates, ensuring your latest news, events, and announcements are easily accessible. This keeps your audience informed and engaged with your most recent activities and important information.
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Share Customer Testimonials
Preserve customer testimonials by saving them to your Highlights. Instead of letting these positive reviews disappear, keep them visible on your profile to build trust with potential customers.
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Showcase Products
Instagram Highlights keep key products and services visible. Schedule stories on Instagram to feature new arrivals, products, best sellers, tutorials, events, reviews, and exclusive collections like Sephora does.
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Provide a Behind-the-Scenes Look
Give your audience a glimpse behind the scenes at your business. Use Instagram Highlights to show how you create your products, pack orders, or introduce the employees who keep your business running.
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Feature Influencers and Customers
Use Instagram Highlights to feature influencers and customers, bringing fresh voices to your profile. This showcases authentic experiences and builds a stronger connection with your audience by highlighting community engagement and real-life endorsements.
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Provide Something Extra
Share bonus content with your fans through Instagram Highlights. This can include exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, special offers, or additional tips, giving your audience extra value and keeping them engaged with unique and exclusive content they won’t find elsewhere.
Using Highlights strategically can enhance your brand’s visibility, engage your audience, and provide valuable content that keeps followers coming back.
Tips To Optimize Ig Highlight Covers For Your Profile
It is essential to optimize and create highlight covers to reflect your brand identity to maximize the impact of your Instagram Highlights. Here are a few tips to help you accomplish this:
Highlight Categories
Identify key themes or categories representing the content you want to showcase. Design individual Highlight covers for each category to help followers easily locate the content they’re interested in.
Embed Instagram Videos
Add Instagram videos to your Highlight covers for dynamic and engaging content. Videos can provide a sneak peek into the Highlight’s content and capture viewers’ attention effectively.
Custom Graphics
Design custom graphics for your Instagram Highlight icon that are visually appealing and relevant to each category. Utilize graphics that embody the content’s essence and attract viewers to delve deeper.
Customer Engagement Examples
Showcase customer engagement and interaction in your Instagram Highlights to emphasize your brand’s connection with its audience. Showcase user-generated content, testimonials, and positive reviews to enhance trust and credibility.
Update Regularly
Keep your Highlight covers up to date by refreshing them with new content. Replace outdated covers with fresh images or videos to keep your profile current and relevant.
Positive Reviews
Use Highlight covers to feature positive reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers. It highlights your brand’s credibility and encourages potential customers to engage with your content.
Consistent Branding
To enhance your brand identity through Instagram Highlights, consider using Socinator, a powerful tool for managing and automating your social media presence. Socinator helps maintain a cohesive aesthetic across all your Highlight covers, ensuring consistent use of colors, fonts, and design elements that reflect your brand’s personality and style. This approach reinforces your brand identity and creates a visually appealing profile that engages your audience effectively.
Follow these tips to create optimized Ig Highlight covers that enhance your profile’s visual appeal and strengthen your brand identity.
Socinator- Social Media Automation Tool
Socinator is a social media management and automation tool designed to simplify and streamline various tasks across multiple social media platforms. It caters to individuals, marketers, and businesses aiming to optimize their social media presence, Instagram highlights, and engagement without investing excessive time and effort.
Automated Scheduling and Posting
Socinator allows you to schedule multiple posts at once across various social media platforms through its bulk scheduling feature. With drip feeding, you can post content at regular intervals to maintain consistent activity. The calendar view helps you visualize your schedule and automate Instagram posts in a user-friendly format.
Account Management
Managing several social media accounts from a single dashboard becomes effortless with Socinator. Profile management features make it easy to update and manage profile details seamlessly.
Engagement Automation
Automated engagement tools include auto follow/unfollow, allowing you to follow or unfollow users based on specific criteria, and auto like/comment, which likes and comments on posts automatically to boost engagement. Auto messaging can send automated direct messages to new followers or specific users, enhancing interaction.
Analytics and Reporting
This Instagram automation tool track the performance of your posts, Instagram highlights, and overall social media activity with detailed performance metrics. Socinator generates comprehensive reports on engagement, reach, and growth metrics, providing valuable insights for optimizing your social media strategy.
Supported Platforms
Socinator supports various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, and YouTube. By utilizing these features, users can improve their social media strategy, boost engagement, and save time managing their social media activities.
How To Design Covers For Your Instagram Highlights?
Creating an eye-catching Instagram highlight cover template for your Instagram Highlights can enhance the visual appeal of your profile and make your Highlights more engaging. Refer to this step-by-step guide to designing effective and appealing covers:
- Choose a Theme: Select a consistent theme or aesthetic that aligns with your brand identity and the content of your Highlights.
- Select Design Software: Use design tools like Canva, Adobe Spark, or Over to create your covers. These platforms provide a variety of templates and customization options.
- Create Cover Graphics: Design your cover graphics using icons, illustrations, or text overlays. Ensure the graphics are visually appealing and relevant to the content of each Highlight.
- Add Branding Elements: Incorporate branding elements such as your logo, brand colors, and fonts to maintain consistency across your Instagram Highlights.
- Customize Cover Size: Make sure to resize your covers to match the circular format of Instagram Highlights. The recommended size is 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels.
- Upload To Instagram: To upload your covers to Instagram, go to your profile and select “Edit Highlight.” Then, choose “Edit Cover” to swap out the default cover image for your custom design.
You can create professional and attractive Instagram Highlight covers by following these steps. It will enhance your profile’s overall aesthetic.
Read More
Methods To Create Instagram Highlight Covers
15 best Instagram Ideas To Level Up Your Instagram Game
How To Add Covers to Insta Highlights?
Here are the steps to add a new cover to your Instagram Highlights:
Design or Choose Cover Images: Create or select cover images representing the content or theme of each Highlight category.
Open Instagram App: Launch the Instagram app and navigate to your profile by tapping your profile picture in the bottom right corner.
Access Highlights: Tap on the “Highlights” section below your bio.
Select Highlight: Choose the Highlight to which you want to add a cover by tapping and holding on it until a menu appears.
Edit Highlight: From the menu, select “Edit Highlight.”
Change Cover: Tap “Edit Cover” and then select “Change Cover.”
Choose Cover Image: Browse through your camera roll or gallery to select the desired cover image. Adjust the positioning and zoom as necessary.
Save Changes: Once satisfied with the cover image, tap “Done” or “Save” to apply your changes.
Repeat for Each Highlight: Repeat the process for each Highlight category, selecting a unique cover image.
By following these steps, you can customize your Instagram Highlights with appealing cover images that enhance the visibility and organization of your profile.
Wrapping Up
Instagram Highlights are vital tools for businesses and individuals looking to boost their social media presence. You can extend its lifespan and offer visitors a comprehensive view of your brand’s essence by organizing your best content into themed Highlights.
Highlights serve as dynamic showcases of your brand’s narrative.
It helps you showcase products, share customer stories, or provide behind-the-scenes insights.
Regularly updating and optimizing Highlight covers ensures your profile remains current and inviting. Incorporating tools like Socinator can streamline the process, making managing and refreshing your Highlights easier. It also supports Instagram automatic posts, further simplifying your social media management.
Leverage Instagram Highlights to tell your brand’s story compellingly, fostering deeper connections and sustained audience interest on Instagram.
Frequently Asked Questions
Que: Is it possible to see who views your Instagram highlights?
Yes, you can check who viewed your Instagram highlights within the first 24 hours of posting. After this period, Instagram does not log the views, so this feature is only available for stories set as highlights during that timeframe.
Que: Is it possible to create highlights without posting a story?
Creating Highlights Without Sharing a Story
When the camera interface appears, swipe right to access your camera roll. Choose the content you wish to add to your Highlight. Select the “+ Add to Highlight” button at the bottom of the screen. You can then opt to include the content in an existing Highlight or create a new one.
Que: How can you find out who views your Instagram profile?
Explore these popular methods to discover who’s been viewing your Instagram profile:
- Monitor interactions on your Instagram profile.
- Review viewers of your Instagram stories.
- Examine your list of Instagram followers.
- Avoid using third-party apps.
- Utilize Instagram Insights for detailed analytics.
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