Instagram Stories are proven to be a great way to connect with followers. The many features available in Stories allow users to interact with their audience, get to know them, and get timely information out that stays at the top of their followers’ timelines. However, Instagram Stories are made to disappear after 24 hours – which means your hard work developing your content is short-lived. However, with the introduction of Story Highlights, Instagram allowed users to keep their Stories indefinitely at the top of their profile.
Adding Story Highlights to your profile means your content can continue to engage your audience, and assures that new followers don’t miss out on the Story content you have posted in the past.
Ready to post Highlights? Here are a few simple steps to make that happen:
- Make sure your Instagram Stories are set to be archived.
If your Stories aren’t set to archive, you won’t be able to save them to your Highlights. In order to do this, go to the Settings option on your Instagram account. From there, select “Privacy” and then “Story.” On the “Story” tab, you’ll have the option to toggle the sliding button to “Save story to archive.”
- Create a thumbnail for your Highlight.
You can create cover art for your Highlights (or hire someone to do this for you.) You’ll post the thumbnails to your Instagram Stories in order for them to be stored in your Archives.
- Create your Highlight.
Select the white circle with the word “New” with the plus sign inside at the top of your profile home page. This will navigate you to your Stories Archive where you can select the archived Stories you want to include in your Highlight.
What content should you include in your Highlights?
Many people opt to organize their Highlights either thematically or chronologically. Organizing your Highlights by theme allows your new followers to quickly navigate to content you have developed and curated. Depending on what your business offers, attracting potential customers to your Highlights allows you to continue advertising your product to a consistently new audience without constantly creating new content.
If your account shows progression of the development of your business, or if it’s based around your own life or family, a chronological order of Highlights might serve your account well. This will allow new followers to catch up on your story while you’re able to post new content.
