As you probably already know, Instagram highlight covers are a great way to keep your followers engaged with your content long after you’ve posted it. But did you also know that there are certain best practises you can follow to make sure your highlights covers are really eye-catching and engaging?
In this article, we’ll introduce you to some of the best practises you can follow to create an Instagram highlight cover that will impress your followers. By following these tips, you can be sure that your highlight covers will catch your followers’ attention and keep them interested in your content.
We’ve compiled a list of best practises for creating Instagram highlight covers. Our post is a must-read for any marketer who wants to understand the importance of these tips. Let’s get started right away!
What are Instagram highlights?
Instagram highlights are a way to showcase your best Instagram posts in a separate section of your profile.
These highlights are a great way to keep your followers up to date with what’s going on in your channel, or to showcase your work. They’re essentially a curated selection of your photos and videos, organized into a neat little package.
And the best part? You can create them right from your phone.
To create an Instagram highlight, first open up the app and go to your profile page. Then, tap the “Edit Profile” button and select “Create Highlight.”
From there, you can give your highlight a title and select the photos and videos you want to include. Once you’re happy with your selection, tap “Done” and your highlight will be live for all to see.
Why are highlights important?
User engagement on social media platforms is important for both businesses and individuals looking to build an online presence. By curating your best content and sharing it with your followers, you can ensure that your audience sees the content you want them to see.
When you create highlights, you can organise your content so that your followers can easily browse through it and find the information they’re looking for.
Highlights are important because they allow you to curate your best content and make it more accessible to your followers.
Instagram Stories Highlights are extremely valuable because they allow brands to easily curate and showcase the content they want users to see first. You can think of Instagram highlight covers like a movie trailer for your Instagram feed. They’re a creative way to express yourself, showcase your products, drive traffic or market your business!
How to find the Instagram Highlight Covers
There are 3 options to find Instagram Highlight Covers.
Option #1: Use an existing image from your latest Stories.
You can do this very easily:
- Click on your Stories
- Search for a Story you uploaded in the last 24 hours.
- Select “Highlight” at the bottom right of the screen.
- Then click on “New” to create a new highlight,
- Give your highlight a name
- And finally click on “Add” to add the highlight to your Instagram profile.
Now, if you want to create a new highlight with older stories, the process is a little different.
If that’s the case, you’ve to do that:
- Go to your profile
- Click on the menu at the top right
- Select Archive to access your story archive
- Find the stories you want to include in your highlight.
- Click on “New” to create a new Highlight
- Name your new highlight
- Click on “Add” to add it to your profile.
Option #2: Use Instagram highlight covers templates
When you want to go a bit further with your creatives and go beyond the image from your stories, there are many online resources to help you create pre-made highlight covers.
Canva Stories and Adobe’s Spark, for example, offer many options to help you get creative with your Instagram highlights.
Option #3 Creating your own custom Instagram Highlight Covers
This optimisation might be right for you. If you want to create Instagram highlight covers that reflect your brand 100%.
Tools like Canva, PicMonkey or even Photoshop for a more professional look with a focus on graphic design.
You just need to keep in mind the right dimensions for your IG story cover: 1080×1902 pixels.
7 Best practices to create better Instagram highlight covers
Don’t diminish the value of your highlights by choosing covers that don’t match your brand or are cluttered and hard to read. Instead, use these best practices to create Instagram highlight covers that will drive your followers to that section of your profile and give them a reason to engage:
- Keep it consistent with your brand
- Focus on value creation
- Make it stand out
- Be clear
- Keep it simple
- Prefer icons or images instead of text
- work with icons and images that are closely related to the content
1. Keep it consistent with your brand
By tailoring your Instagram highlight covers to your brand, you can make a big impression on your followers. And it’s not that hard – just choose a consistent colour scheme or style for your covers and make sure they all reflect your brand’s identity.
As Instagram grows in popularity, more and more businesses are using the platform to promote their brand. Make your business stand out on Instagram by using a consistent and visually appealing highlight cover.
2. Focus on value creation
Never sacrifice value for quality. All your content in all your marketing channels, starting with your website and your social networks, must provide value.
If you don’t, you won’t see your audience grow. Yes, that’s a cruel reality you’re probably in right now. Let’s find out if your content is adding value:
- What’s the engagement rate on your Facebook and Instagram pages?
- How is it on your website?
- How many visitors comment and share your content?
The answer to these questions will surely show you how valuable your content is.
3. Create them to stand out
You must make your highlight covers fascinating. Even covers that you think are well branded, simple and helpful can turn out to be something interesting and eye-catching.
Many big brands incorporate text into their icons and use black and white images. This doesn’t necessarily have to match the colours of your feed design or profile photo, but it gives this area a clear and concise character that draws attention.
4. Be simple
Stop it ✋. Don’t try to pack a lot of information into your icon. An image or a few words are enough to make it simple what the content of the highlight is. If you use text in the highlight itself, it’s important that you reduce your message to one or two words.
Yes, I know you need an example of how to effectively use text for your Instagram highlights. You should check out the New York Times Instagram channel. Each tile reflects the black and white branding of the media company and the text is simple, clear and easy to read.
5. Keep it clear
Being clear is not the same than being simple.
Icons are undoubtedly great for avoiding text and making the importance of your focus clear. You don’t have to worry about fonts and phrasing to describe stories.
To make your Instagram highlight covers as clear as possible, you should use icons with a one or two word description of the highlight below them. Your community doesn’t have to click to find out what kind of content the selected highlight contains.
Now, if you follow Google’s Instagram channel, you can see that they use icons that describe what the highlight is about. This creates a different and more interesting experience for followers.
Note that Google doesn’t use highlights with words. This may even make your highlights stand out from the graphic or text-based highlights that are normally used.
6. Prefer icons or images instead of text
If you leave your followers guessing what’s behind each highlight, you might lose them quickly. For example, if one of your highlights has to do with food, your icons should include utensils, bowls, ingredients and menus.
It’s important that you don’t lose the interest of your audience. The best way to do this is to help your fans understand what the highlight is about by simply looking at it.
7. Work with icons and images that are closely related to the content
This seventh exercise is closely related to number one. There must be a connection between the images or text used and the content itself and the brand identity.
There are too many social channels that have literally nothing to do with the brand identity, brand colours, brand voice, etc.
You don’t want that, you want consistency and uniformity not only in your Instagram highlights but across all marketing channels.
How can you improve customer engagement with highlights?
You can improve customer engagement with highlights by creating highlights that showcase your best content and by making it easy for your followers to find your highlights.
Surely you know how important it’s to build a strong visual brand. Keeping your visual identity consistent, from your profile picture to your posts and your stories to the smallest details like Instagram highlights, will grow your brand awareness and have the potential to bring you more business.
See your Instagram highlight covers as a way to get your followers to focus on your most important Stories. Get them to access your Stories and come back, which will help you promote your products, services or even your marketing team.
Think of your highlights as the shop window of your online shop. You want to give the best first impression.
In summary, highlights are a great way to improve customer engagement.
By following some simple best practises, you can use highlights to improve customer engagement and make it easy for your followers to find your best content.
Now it’s your turn – above you’ve found everything you need to know to make your Instagram highlight covers great. And what’s even better: you can always update your Highlight Covers. Test your creative ideas again and again, do split tests and play with the design.
If you need help, you can always leave a comment or call me, my phone is there too.
