Instagram Stories Highlights are the first impression people get when they land on your Instagram profile. Many people tap through these highlights before they scroll down to your grid. You want to make sure you that you don't make a bad first impression by curating these highlights to entice new followers or customers.
Choose Categories That Draw Customers In
If someone has landed on your profile, they want to learn more about you or your business. Give them want they want in your highlights so they don't have to scroll through posts looking for a caption that answers their questions. Make sure you pick clear, concise titles for each of your highlights. You want to guide people to what they want and remove any confusion. Here are a few categories we recommend, but take the time to consider what you'd want to convey for a first impression of your unique brand or business.
Services
Make sure you have a services highlight. Anything that your business offers should be in this highlight. We recommend not putting pricing in your services section.
Behind the Scenes
Share behind the scenes footage of your business. People love feeling like they're seeing behind the curtain. If you're an influencer, this would be a great place to put the not perfect photos from your photoshoots or footage of you posing for the camera.
Reviews
If you haven't been collecting reviews from past clients or customers, this is your sign to start. Periodically share reviews to your stories and then add them to your highlights. This way when people land on your profile, they'll immediately be able to hear what other people have to say about your business.
Tips & Tricks
This is a great way to set yourself up as an expert in your industry. Anytime you share educational content about your niche to your story, add it to this highlight. People will immediately be impressed by your expertise.
Products
If your business sells physical products, you should make sure you have a highlight dedicated to photos of the products. This could be as simple as sharing feed posts to your story and then adding those to your highlight.
Giving Back
If philanthropy is a consistent part of your brand, make sure you include this in your highlights. If you give a percentage of your profits to a charity, share about that on your IG stories. People want to support businesses that are more than just profit machines. Do you give free consultations once a month to people who can't afford your services? Be sure to let new followers know that in your highlights.
Happy Customers
This is different from your Reviews highlight. The Happy Customers highlight is where you can put stories that your clients and customers have tagged you in raving about your business or products. This is a great way to put UGC (User Generated Content) into action!
Create Covers That Match Your Brand's Aesthetic
Instagram will use the first Story you add to a highlight as the default highlight cover. This can create a really messy look on your profile. Instead, create highlight covers in an app like Canva. You can use a combination of graphic design and photography on your covers, as long as they clearly convey what the highlight is about. Instagram only shows so many characters in the title of the highlights on your profile. If you choose short, snappy titles like Media A La Carte's below, using highlight covers without words is great. If your titles are longer than what Instagram will show, you definitely want to consider putting the full title text on your highlight cover. Incorporating your brand colors into your highlight cover designs is a great way to further customize your Instagram profile. To learn how to create covers in Canva, click here.
BONUS TIP 🔥: You don't have to share your covers to Instagram Stories to be able to add them to your highlights. Go to your highlight and click the 3 tiny dots in the bottom right corner. Then click "Edit Highlight". Next click "Edit Cover", and finally select the camera roll icon to add your designed cover without ever posting it to your story.
Do not sleep on your Instagram Stories Highlights. We cannot stress enough how useful they are for making the perfect first impression, and if they're untidy and unbranded, they will make the worst first impression. Clean up your profile, and your IG Highlights pop!
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