We all know Stories are an effective way to build engagement with followers and share behind-the-scenes snapshots of your life.

That’s why we’re putting more effort into them than ever before. While apps like Over and Unfold allow us to curate our once candid Stories into more considered posts, Instagram’s ever-expanding sticker collection lets us connect with and entertain our followers.

What hasn’t changed however, is their expiration date. After twenty four hours on your feed, they disappear. Unless of course, you save them to your highlights reel. A permanent collection of your Stories, on your profile and visible to all your followers until you choose to delete them.

Why you should create highlights

As well as extending the life of your content, your Story highlights will allow new visitors to your profile a chance to see what your account is all about and easily navigate it.

Perhaps you are a travel influencer who could sort their highlights by destination, giving followers an easy way to discover your past adventures. Or maybe you share content about parenting and want to edit your Stories into helpful topics. How about if you’ve spent hours replying to your followers questions in the ‘ask me anything’ box? You could keep them safe in a Q&A highlight.

However you organise them, in choosing the very best of your past Stories, you’ll be ensuring new visitors see a highlights reel that will make hitting that follow button irresistible. For those already following you, there is a whole bank of content to rediscover.

Get highlighting

If we’ve persuaded you to save some highlights, here’s how you do it.

• Go to your profile and tap Story highlights below your username and bio. You might see some suggestions Instagram has already made for you there.
• Tap the + and you will see all of the Stories you have posted over the years.
• Select the story or stories you want to group together into a highlights reel, then tap next.
• Choose a cover photo and enter a story name for your highlight, then tap Add (iPhone) or Done (Android).

You can add more photos or videos to your highlights too. Simply go into the highlight reel you want to add to, select ‘more’ then, ‘edit highlight’. Select ‘archive’ and choose any additional Stories you want to add to that reel.

How to make them look extra

Sounds easy right? Almost a little too easy. Want to jazz them up a bit? We hear you.

For a super polished look, why not design some of your very own on-brand icons as cover images for your highlights? You could do this easily using a website like Canva, using images and colours in-keeping with your Insta aesthetic. You’ll need to post these designs as Stories so you can add them to your highlights and make them covers.

Don’t forget, if emojis are your thing, you can add them to the names of your highlights. Or even use emojis alone to name your highlights. The Instagram Story highlight world is your oyster. 

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