If someone visits your website, you have less than 20 seconds to get their attention before they click away. Let’s pretend that number is the same for social media (but I’d be willing to bet they’ll swipe back even faster when they’re scrolling social). If someone lands on your Instagram account, you have mere seconds to capture that person’s attention and entice them to take action – to follow you, watch a video, like a post, etc. No pressure, right?
Luckily Instagram offers the ability to create custom highlights, also called highlight bubbles (ya know – because they’re round, small circles), which is an excellent way to help you quickly showcase your account. Your highlights sit right below your bio information above your grid, so this is prime digital real estate! Let’s ensure you take full advantage of this valuable feature to help guide your new followers through your most strategic content.
What Are Instagram Story Highlight Covers?
Before I jump into the details, I want to clarify that highlights are actually collections of Instagram stories. So you do need to post stories before you can create highlights. The good news is that you can use your story archive to set up your highlights, so you don’t need to run out and create a bunch of new stories.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, one of the most common questions I get from clients is, “how do we customize our Instagram highlights?” And I love that question! Creating aesthetic Instagram highlight covers that match your corporate branding is such an easy way to add a professional and cohesive touch to your profile.
Step-by-step guide on how to create branded, aesthetic Instagram highlight covers
1. Gather inspiration
A great way to do this is to look at the Instagram story highlights of other accounts in your industry and see what types of highlight covers they use. Try searching for design ideas on Pinterest if you want even more inspiration. Make sure you note the different themes used for the highlights, too. For example, if all your competitors have an “FAQ” highlight, that’s a signal that your target audience is looking for this type of info, so you should probably consider creating one.
2. Decide on a design style for your custom highlight covers
You could use icons based on the content you post, such as your products or industry. You can also use photos instead, maybe choosing from your grid that performed well. Either way, you should be sure to incorporate your brand colors as you select icons or images. I recommend using a consistent style for all your bubbles, rather than mixing it up for each highlight.
3. Create images that match your specific theme
This is where it gets fun! If you’re using icons or graphics, you can use a graphic design software like Adobe Photoshop or Canva to create your highlights covers.
I love Canva because they have a great free version that’s easy to use – even if you don’t have any formal design skills. There are lots of customizable templates to choose from, and some might even fit your color scheme without a lot of edits. If you don’t have a Canva account, you can sign up for a free trial using my affiliate link. Here are some templates to try out:
Once you’ve created the images, save them to your phone or screenshot them so you have them handy in your photos.
4. Now head over to your Instagram page to set up your custom covers
If you already have existing highlights, click into a highlight and use the three dots in the lower, right-hand corner labeled “More” and then select the “Edit Highlight” menu option.
From there, click Edit Cover and choose from one of the images you’ve saved to your phone.
5. Label Your Instagram Highlight Covers
If you want to change the text below your highlight bubbles, keep in mind that the character limit is short! Feel free to use emojis if that fits with your brand aesthetic, or you can keep the text in your highlight cover image and skip the label altogether.
Here are a few additional tips for creating beautiful covers:
- Stay away from abstract shapes since the highlights are automatically formatted as circles by Instagram.
- If you don’t know the exact hex or RGB details of your brand color palette for any reason, I swear by this Chrome extension to help identify colors on any website. As a consultant, I can tell you that this is actually quite common!
- If you want to use icons for your highlight covers but you don’t want to create your own design, you can find free icons in Canva, or on a site like Pexels or Pixabay.
- If you want to create a new Instagram highlight in the future, don’t forget to come back to your design so you can create a new icon or cover photo to match your Instagram aesthetic
That’s it! Taking the time to create the perfect highlight covers is such a fun way to showcase your content. Plus, it’s the perfect way to leave a lasting impression when someone visits your profile.
Follow these steps and you’ll have customized, aesthetic Instagram highlight covers for your brand. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments!
