Instagram Stories are one of Instagram’s best-loved features. But the downside about them is that they expire after 24 hours… Luckily, you can keep them up for longer with Instagram Highlights!
Highlights allow you to gather your Instagram Stories into categorized folders that users can view on your profile. They work much like your Story archive or the Collections feature. You can store and curate your Stories to share helpful information, resources, announcements, product or service info, user-generated content, and more.
You can also create Highlight covers to keep your profile looking uniform and on-brand.
Now, without further ado, here’s how to make Highlights and how you can use Instagram Highlights for your brand.
How To Make A Highlight
Before we get into how you can play with Highlights, here’s how you create one from your Stories.
If it’s your first time making a Story:
- Go to your profile.
- Click on the ‘Story Highlights’ dropdown arrow.
- Pick the (+) symbol that reads ‘New’.
- You’ll see the Stories in your archive and you can pick the ones you want to include in your Instagram Highlight.
- Tap ‘Next’ and type a title for your Highlight.
Once you’ve created your highlight, you can add Stories using two methods.
To use Stories that are still within the 24-hour active window:
- View the story.
- Click on ‘Highlight’ at the bottom right corner.
- Select an existing Highlight to add the Story to.
If you want to use expired Stories:
- Go to your profile page.
- Click on the burger menu.
- Choose ‘Archive’.
- Find the Story you want and click on it to add to a Highlight.
Simple, right? Now, you can decide how to curate your Stories and choose content that’s worth collecting.
8 Creative Ways To Use Instagram Highlights For Small Businesses
These are eight ways you can organize your Instagram Stories.
Create Event Memories
Your Highlight can act like an album for your event videos and images. You can use the feature to show snaps from your events and events your brand gets involved in.
Users can check out this Highlight when thinking about attending your events. It becomes like a form of marketing for your brand events and it gives participants a sneak peek into how you do things.
Reflect On Company Milestones
Another way to reflect and go down memory lane while sharing information is to have an ‘Announcements’ or ‘News’ highlight.
Gather your business’ announcements in one place. This is a great way for people to see how much you’ve grown, find out what’s new, and learn about upcoming developments.
Share Product Ranges, Collections, Or Campaigns
A fantastic way to use your Instagram Highlights is to showcase your brand products. Create a highlight that users can use to see different products. You can even create separate highlights for different campaigns or collections.
If you add a link or shopping sticker to the original story, users can even go directly from the Highlight to the product. This Instagram trick makes for easy conversions since it makes it simple for customers to buy the product.
Spotlight Testimonials & Reviews
Another way to share more about products is by sharing reviews and testimonials from your customers. Positive feedback is always great to highlight and it can draw more people into buying your products.
Use your Highlights to share screenshots, graphics, and videos of reviews and customer testimonials.
Organize Educational Resources
If you’ve positioned yourself as an expert in your field (which you definitely want to do on social media), users will come to your page for info. That’s why you have to have educational links and other resources on your Stories. This includes stuff like podcasts, digital courses, YouTube videos, PDFs, and more.
Create an Instagram Highlight dedicated to sharing resources and educational information with your followers. This is a fantastic way to use Stories and Highlights to add value to other IG users.
Design An Accessible Support Portal
Resources can help users learn and answer any questions they have about your field or niche. But for questions and issues about your brand and products, you’ll need a different Highlight.
You can call this one ‘FAQ’, for example, and dedicate it to answering commonly asked questions.
To get users asking questions, paste the “Questions” sticker onto your Story. You can go the ‘Ask Me Anything’ route or you can type in a relevant prompt to get your followers to send in their questions. You can type on the Story to answer, screenshot relevant pages and insert them into your Story, or record audio or video responses.
Alternatively, you can create your own resources for Highlights without posting them as Stories first. To do this, check out our guide on How to Add Highlights on Instagram Without Posting to Your Story.
Tell Others About Your Company & Your Team
Most brands do a ‘Meet The Team’ series when they first set up an Instagram account. Over 100 posts or so later and users no longer have the time or energy to scroll all the way down to those team posts to see who you are.
Instagram Highlights are a great way to have your employees front and center. You can introduce them to customers and involve them visibly in social media efforts. Use your team highlight for employee takeover, team events, video introductions, Q&A sessions, etc.
Share BTS Content
Behind-the-scenes content is also a great way to add value and build your relationship with users. Seeing how your brand works and witnessing your team in action brings an element of humanity to your page.
Users may also be interested in your content creation process. Share unused images and clips, and content showing how you got to the final product. This is a great opportunity to repurpose content you haven’t used and give an exclusive look at how your brand works.
Add Highlights To Your Instagram Profile
Instagram Highlights are front and center on your profile. Any user visiting your account cannot miss them. This makes them a valuable feature that all brands and businesses should leverage for their marketing, branding, and customer experience design.
The key to using them for the best of your brand is to keep them relevant. Update them constantly and make sure they add value for your customers.
View Highlights as a chance to make your Stories work that much harder for you. They’re a great way to recycle content and make it last longer. Create your first Highlight today!
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