Story highlights are an effective marketing strategy to engage users with your most important content and make a good first impression. When used correctly, they can increase your profile’s visibility and grow your follower count. Whether you’re a creator or a business, story highlights will help ensure that your content gets seen and enjoyed.
What Are Story Highlights?
Story highlights appear at the top of your Instagram profile as circular colorful icons. Each icon represents content collected from your stories shared within a 24-hour period. You can choose to highlight a single story, or create a collection of related stories for a closer view of the content. This feature is a great way to reflect your brand’s personality and helps users quickly understand what your account is all about.
Why Use Story Highlights?
The primary advantage of story highlights lies in their ability to keep your content front and center. With a limited shelf-life, stories don’t usually last long enough to reach a wide audience. Creating a highlight provides an extended life for your content, allowing users to easily access it whenever they want. They also provide a unique way to share behind-the-scenes content, special offers, or exclusive features. Additionally, highlights contribute to the customization and personalization of your profile, showcasing what your audience values most.
How to Create Effective Story Highlights
When creating highlights, you’ll want to make sure that each icon stands out. A colorful, relevant image is key to grabbing users’ attention, so make sure your highlights are consistent in style. Think about what makes your highlight unique, and what would be the best imagery to represent that. When creating collections, it’s important to keep the stories in order so that they tell a cohesive story or sequence. Finally, remember to use descriptive titles for easy recognition.
What Content to Highlight?
The key to creating story highlights that will engage users and promote key content is to choose the right content to highlight. Highlight content that shows case studies of previous successful projects, brand-specific content such as the onboarding process, and user-generated content from fans. Behind-the-scenes content is also popular; highlighting some candid moments can create a feeling of authenticity with your audience. It’s also a good idea to highlight current promotions, and exclusive offers. Finally, you can use highlights to share recent blog posts, or relevant industry news.
Maintaining Story Highlights
Once you’ve created your highlights, it’s important to keep them up-to-date. Story highlights by nature are temporary, so it’s important to make sure that the content you’ve highlighted is still relevant. Consider regularly updating your highlight content so that you keep your profile looking fresh and engaging. When removing story highlights, make sure to save the content to your device in case you want to re-highlight it in the future.
Conclusion
Browsing through an account’s profile can provide a look into the content and message it provides. Story highlights are an excellent way to help increase your profile’s visibility and provide your audience a look into what your brand offers. When creating and maintaining effective story highlights, you’ll be able to promote your key content in a way that keeps your audience engaged. With the right strategy and a little creativity, story highlights can be one of the most important tools for growing your Instagram presence.