Instagram Stories Highlights are a great tool for businesses to showcase and promote their products and services. Stories disappear within 24 hours, but when saved as a highlight they live front-and-center on your Instagram profile. Highlights are curated collections of Instagram Stories that your followers can tap into and watch any time they like. These are perfect for helping visitors discover what your company offers. 

What is an Instagram Story?

Instagram Stories allow Instagram users to share photos and videos to their “Story” — which is visible to followers of the user’s Instagram account. Stories are ephemeral, meaning they disappear after 24 hours. Stories you create and share on Instagram are automatically saved in your Stories Archive, so there’s no need to save them to your phone.

As a business owner you may be thinking, “what’s the point?”  But… Instagram Stories can drive a ton of engagement and value.

Instagram Stories have contributed to the huge jump in time spent in-app every day from 24 minutes to 32. Stories have fueled the growth of many brands in a time of dwindling attention span, so whether you are trying to grow brand awareness, send traffic to your website, or attract new customers, take a look at what Stories can do for your business.

How to Make an Instagram Story Highlight

Step one is to decide what to say or promote. With Highlights front and center on your Instagram profile, it is worth spending time planning and strategizing how to use them to your advantage!

A Story Highlight are a collection of archived stories.  Since there currently isn’t a way to reorder Story Highlights, make sure to add the archived stories in order.  This is where planning is really important. For example, using an opening cover image that talks about your story. 

Step two is creating the assets for the Story.

Canva.com is a wonderful tool to create graphics such as the Instagram Takeover image above. If video will be part of your Story Highlight, you will need to record the video on your mobile app with the camera vertical.

Each piece of the Story Highlight is a separate story on your profile. With Archives set to on, all your stories will be saved and easily retrieved when you start setting up the Story Highlight.

The best size for your highlight  is 1920 pixels high and 1080 pixels wide.

Step three is setting up the Story on the App.  Because this is ephemeral content, it needs to be set up on the phone app and not through a scheduler software, such as Hootsuite.

1. Open Instagram, and tap the camera icon in the upper left-hand corner of your phone.
2. Share a photo or video you’ve already captured by swiping up on your screen to browse your gallery.
3. Or, choose a camera lens to capture a photo or video in the app.
4. Once you’ve edited your photo or video, tap “Your Story,” or tap “Next” to share it to your Story and to other friends at the same time.

Step 4 is to create the Story Highlight.

1. Go to your profile, then select “New”.
2. Choose the items you want to add to this Highlight and select “Next” when you’re done.
3. Edit the Highlight Cover. It can either be an image selected from the Stories included in the Highlight or a custom cover chosen from the Gallery.
4. Name the Highlight.
5. Tap “Done”.

You can add unlimited Instagram highlight “groups” to your account, but there can only be 100 archived stories to each group.

Story Highlights are a quick look at what a company stands for as a brand – and that means they should be a selection of the best, most demonstrative and evocative content. If your business needs creative help with social media and creating Instagram Story Highlights, schedule a consultation today.

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