Social Media Specific: Instagram Highlights

You may already know about Insta Stories–the pictures or video clips that only last 24 hours after they’re posted. But there’s a way to preserve your Stories for future viewing, all using Highlights.

Highlights can be accessed as circular icons underneath an Instagram bio. You can have one Highlight, many, or none–it all depends on your preferences. Since your Stories disappear after 24 hours, saving your Story to your highlights is a great way to make sure the information stays in place if you think your followers might want to reference it later. For example, you might have a highlight for About Us information, as a very basic overview of your business and services. This Highlight would include all information you’d want viewers and clients to be able to access at any time, not just within a 24 hour period.

Making a Highlight is pretty simple. You can either go to your Highlights under your bio, select New, and add previous Stories to your new Highlight, or you can click on Highlight at the bottom right corner of a current Story and add it to a new highlight that way. As you continue to create Stories that you want to add to various Highlights, just click that Highlight heart in the bottom right and select the Highlight or Highlights that you want it to be added to.

What are the main benefits of Highlights?

• Organization. Information can be easily organized according to what Highlight category it falls under (for example, product information versus general business information). Stories can also be assigned to more than one Highlight, in case they fall under multiple categories.
• Accessibility. Since Highlights are right under your bio, they are one of the first things that Instagram users will see when they navigate to your profile.
• Creativity. Getting creative with your Highlights is a great way to draw people further into your bio, and to show off your work. Perhaps making a Highlight of saved customer reviews would recommend new people to your business, or a Highlight of fun events you’ve hosted might invite new members to join. You can also customize the covers and names of your Highlights to match the overall look of your profile.