Your Detailed Guide To Instagram Stories Highlights

Stories are huge on Instagram. Instagram stories are far more engaging than static posts because of all the elements you can add. And the story feature gives businesses a way to converse with their audiences casually.

You can use stories to build a product or brand narrative. The feature is also incredibly easy to use.

Moreover, Instagram has made Stories even better by adding the Highlights feature. While your stories disappear after 24 hours, you can extend their viewing time by adding them to Highlights.

Highlights are story collections that your followers can scroll through. You can choose which topics (or product stories) you want to add to the highlights section. It is a fantastic way to get more attention on a specific part of your business or introduce a new part.

Why Use Instagram Stories Highlights?

Most people use highlights to make their stories visible for longer. This means you can add content you want new audiences to discover to your highlights section. Popular options include demonstrations, tutorials, reviews, testimonials, and even behind-the-scenes videos.

Highlights make it easy to organize your stories according to themes. So, if you want to focus on products, you can create different product highlights.

To promote blogs and articles, you can create topic highlights. This overview makes it easier for users to find information that interests them.

You can use highlights to tell your audience where your brand is headed (goals, vision) and spotlight our success stories. Doing this will help increase profile engagement and build brand awareness.

Moreover, you can drive more traffic to your website by featuring special offers or promotions on your story highlights.

How To Create an Instagram Story Highlight

It is easy to create your first story highlight. All you need to do is log in to Instagram and tap on your profile picture.

Tap on New, indicated by the plus sign, and choose Story Highlight. This menu option sits next to Story and Live. Choose the stories you want to save as highlights and add names for each highlight.

Create a custom cover photo for each highlight to draw attention from your audience. Then, tap on Add to make your highlights live.

Strategies for Creating Successful Instagram Stories Highlights

Your highlights will not make much of an impact if no one taps on them. It is crucial to make your highlights as visually attractive as possible to increase engagement on your profile.

Therefore, you should brainstorm highlight ideas before you add a single highlight to your account. Consider different monthly or weekly themes and decide on a design style and colors.

If you have specific brand colors, use this color palette in your highlight cover images. Use the same fonts you use on your website and other branding. This will make it easier for Instagram users to recognize your highlight content.

If you struggle to make your highlights look aesthetically consistent, use an online design tool like Canva.

Do not overcrowd the highlights section. The best practice is to add four to ten stories per highlight category. Also, add new stories regularly so your followers have new content to look forward to.

Most importantly, arrange your story highlights in a logical sequence so that it tells a story. For instance, you can add a behind-the-scenes glimpse that shows preparations for a new product launch. Then, you can add another highlight showcasing the new product.

You can add a third and fourth highlight focused on market success and testimonials. Combined, these highlights tell a story that your audience is interested in.

Making the Most Of Highlights

You must get creative with Instagram highlights if you want your brand to stand out. You can do this by using the Close Friends feature linked to Highlights.

You can create a Close Friends list and then set up a Close Friends highlight. This is a private highlight collection you can reserve for a select audience segment. This strategy is great for exclusive or time-sensitive offers and launches.

Furthermore, use your daily stories to promote your highlights section. Use call-to-action stickers to direct followers to your highlights or mention different highlights at the end of your stories.

You can even create your own icons to use as highlight covers. Some brands use icons to differentiate between departments, product lines, or services.

For instance, if you own a spa, you can use icons to highlight stories about your massage, beauty, and health services. If you cannot decide which icons work best, supplement them with a small text overlay.

For example, for a travel agency, your overlays could have different travel destination names. If you want to make it even simpler to distinguish between highlight categories, you can add colored patterns or gradients to your color images.

Keep an eye on how well your highlights fare with your followers. You can do this by implementing a third-party metric tracking tool. These tools measure impressions to help you see which highlights are the most popular.

If you find that your highlights lack engagement, you could consider adding user-generated content as a highlight category. This type of content tends to draw more attention on Instagram.

Interactive Highlight Elements

There have been some changes regarding interactive features and highlights. For instance, you cannot make polls and quizzes clickable within highlights. But you can add the results of these elements to your highlights.

You can also motivate your followers to discuss the details of highlights in the comments section of the related stories.

Highlights Can Help You Find Instagram Success

It may feel like Instagram stories never allow enough time to tell a complete story. This is precisely why the Highlights feature is so valuable. It can help you create a more permanent space for your content without your audience having to scroll through your profile every time.

The most important part of using Highlights is adding stories that resonate with your audience. No matter which part of your brand you want to highlight, the story you tell must spark something within your followers. This will help drive the success you are looking for on Instagram.