If you don't know what Instagram Highlights are, I got you covered. By the end of this video you'll
know what they are, how to set them up quickly and most importantly how to create beautiful highlight
covers for your Instagram profile. Let's do this! Hi there, I'm Natalia and welcome back to my
channel where I share super actionable ideas on content creation for entrepreneurs and creators.
In today's video, I'll show you how to make use of Instagram Highlights in just three easy steps.
Unlike your regular Stories which disappear after 24 hours,
Instagram Stories Highlights live permanently on your profile. And where they're located which
is right beneath your bio makes them a perfect resource for your followers. This is exactly why
you should be very strategic with them to showcase your top content and promote your business.
And since I like to get right in with these mini guide videos, grab your phone,
sit back and let's get you sorted! 1. How to save to highlights
There are a few ways to save your stories to highlights and I'll show you all of them. First of
all, you can do it right when posting your story. So let's get one ready now. Once you've shared it,
the option to Add to Highlights will appear and do it right there. Don't worry if you
don't have any highlights yet, you can create one here as well. I chose TRAVEL for this one.
The second way you can do it is when viewing your stories. Let's post another story to show this. In
the bottom right corner, there is a highlight icon and since my first story is already added to one,
the circle is white and has a black heart symbol inside.
As you can see with the second story, the heart symbol is white and the icon is not
filled with color which means it's not been added to any highlights. Go ahead and click
on it and a wee pop up screen will open up. Let's add it to the TRAVEL highlight as well
Another way which I use the most is through your profile. So go to yours, and you see
that you can add a highlight from there. But if you long press on the existing highlight,
a dialog box appears and you can click edit highlight. From there, you can edit cover which I
will cover ;) in a moment so stay tuned for that, and add and remove stories from your highlight.
You can change the name here too and check out any archive stories that you may add to this one.
2. ENABLING ARCHIVE
And speaking of archives, make sure that you have archiving stories enabled. To do so,
go to your settings, click privacy, then story. Scroll down and you'll see the saving
options. Save to archive is usually enabled as a default but it's better to be safe than sorry.
This will make sure that Instagram automatically saves your stories
to archive and you'll be able to add them to highlights later on.
3. HIGHLIGHT COVERS
If you know me, you probably heard me say it a million times but having a consistent brand
image is crucial. That's why it's super important to have neatly designed highlight covers as well.
There are plenty of options and you can get really creative with this but remember that
highlights covers are actually quite small so you can't go crazy with them. My three tips are this:
use your brand accent color, stay consistent and use visual cues to make the theme easy to
recognize at a glance. I'll explain all three of them for you in detail once we start designing.
So to design your covers, you don't need anything fancy. You can do it from Instagram,
using Canva or if you have it, design them in Photoshop.
Let's start with Instagram quickly which is not the best way but it's certainly easy.
So let's start with a new story. Take a photo of anything, click the text tool and pick a color. As
I mentioned before, it's best if it's in line with your brand so pick an accent color that you always
use. I'll get baby blue for now. Then, you can use emojis, use letters or symbols. On Iphones, you
can copy and paste images into Instagram easily so you can use your own icons as well. You then save
the story without publishing it by clicking this arrow at the top, close the story, discard changes
and go to your profile. Again, long press the highlight, click edit cover and choose
the little image icon. Pick the saved story from your gallery and voila. Here's your quick cover.
I use the instagram method on the go when I create a highlight quickly but don't have the
time or tools with me to design a proper cover. So it acts as a placeholder image.
The second option is Canva and it's probably the best way, unless you have Photoshop. I
won't cover the Photoshop option here because let's face it, if you own it, you'll probably
know how to design one for yourself anyway. Canva is a free tool and because you can
save your designs and get back to them to create more, it will let you stay consistent. So let's
go to Canva now. They have plenty of templates already so if you search instagram highlights,
you'll find a ton of inspiration for yours. Let's pick a basic one and start designing. As you can
see, using icons is the most popular option and for a good reason. As per my third tip,
it's important to make things visual and cue your followers in visibly on what they can expect
and icons do just that. To stay consistent, make sure to pick one icon pack and stick with it.
I've actually shared a quick video on how to find free icons for your business on my TikTok
so I'll link the video in the description below. Alright, so once we have our design,
let's save it in the top right corner. You can then add it as a cover to your highlight
the same way as before so profile, long press, click edit image and there you have it.
Alright, so now you have your first highlight displayed on your profile
Next, check out this video where I share my 15 ideas on how to use
Instagram Highlights for your business. And let me tell you,
this one is juicy! I love to share actionable tips for you to use straight away so make sure to
subscribe and hit that notification bell to never miss a thing. Like this video if you enjoyed it,
comment below if you have any questions and I'll see you soon! Thanks for watching, bye <3