How to Make Instagram Story Highlight Cover Photos

When it comes to social media, hands down, my most favorite place to hang out is on Instagram, specifically on Instagram Stories! Have you used Instagram Stories?!!? Of course, always do your research to figure out where your ideal customer is hanging out on social media, but if it’s Instagram, get on Instagram Stories, now!!! 

Sharing 10-11 Instagram stories a day is powerful for two reasons.

1. It allows you to find your authentic voice in the online space. If you feel nervous to share, on social media, then do my Instagram Story hack and share 10-12 stories a day for a week! See if you don’t come into your own true voice!
2. It allows your audience to connect with you at a more personal level. When they connect, they’ll start caring more about what you’re sharing on your profile, on your blog, and most importantly, they’ll start caring more about what you’re selling!

If you are trying to create a personal brand and monetize that brand, start a blog, monetize your expertise, then focusing on making connections with your audience should be a top priority!

1 | Strategically Plan Your Highlights

Before we get into the nitty gritty of making your Instagram Story Highlight Covers, we first have to determine what categories you’d like to display. This is an easier task if you’ve done the legwork of determining your ideal client, you’ve been consistently sharing already on your Instagram Stories or if you already have a blog. When someone lands on your Instagram profile, you want them to, at a glance, get a feel for who you are and what you do so that they can decide from there whether or not they’ll stay to check you out a bit. Here are the Highlights I have as of the writing of this post

• Mom Hacks
• Favorite Things
• $1k Mom Podcast (Podcast Updates)
• $1k Mom Wins (Client Success)
• Facebook Live
• Habit Hack (a short training story chat)

This is totally up to you what you make these categories. The more creative you can get, the better! If you’re feeling stuck… THINK… Do you have a blog? If so, what are your blog categories? Do you have a podcast? If so, what are those 3-4 overarching themes you frequently talk about? Do you know your niche? If so, what are the things they want to hear from you? Spend some time thinking of intentional highlight titles, but don’t get hung up on them for long. You can always change your mind! Here are a few examples of other Instagram ladies out there rocking it with cute and creative Instagram Story Highlight Covers Julie Solomonnot only has adorable Instagram Story Highlight Covers, but she also creatively categories the information she typically shares with her Insta audience. My favorite is Survey Says. In this category she puts the polls she asks her audience from time to time. That way, as new people follow her, she’s continuously getting new data, intel if you will! Genius Julie!

Rachel Brenke definitely utilizes her Instagram Profile real estate to show potential followers who she is, what she does and how she can help them. I love how she has a BTS, behind the scenes and how she has a MEET ME story. LOVE IT, Rachel!

Rachel Luna drops some serious goodness on Instagram Stories day in and day out. Check her out. But in regards to her Instagram Story Highlights, you can see how she has frequently covered topics as her categories, as well as her Podcast, Real Talk with Rachel Luna. YAY girl, love this!

Here are a couple more examples!

 

2 | Determine the Aesthetic of Your Instagram Story Highlights

Alright, you’ve seen some inspiration of other Instagrammers utilizing the Instagram Story Highlight feature and have come up with your own categories, now it’s time to create your own covers! Here are 2 of my biggest tips to keep in mind

1. Do be on brand!
2. Do be consistent!

First, determine your color scheme. If you already have a brand board and know what your brand colors are, than perfect, stick to that. A great place to go that is simple and free is Paletton to find a color scheme that works for you.  If not, take a few moments are scroll through your feed. Do you notice any colors that you typically use or what stands out to you? Use that as a basis to find color inspiration. Another trick I like to do when I’m trying to find a color scheme is visit Canva.Com. Create your own free account if you haven’t already. Canva is amazing! After you do that, click Create New Design then select any of them. On the left of this new screen you will see layout options. Scroll through until you find colors that catch your eye. When you do. Click the design. It will load into your work space. Then click the color you want info on, then click the swatch at the top and click the plus sign. (pictured below) Write down that hex code….you’ll need it soon.

3 | Make Your Instagram Story Highlights for FREE & SIMPLY

There are a lot of different ways you could do this with a lot of different apps. But today, I’m going to take you through a way that is FREE (hallelujah) and in my opinion, the easiest!

• Login to Canva.
• Click Create New Design
• Select Pinterest Graphic
• In the elements section, click GRIDS then select the first option

• Change the color of the background to the color we wrote down from the previous section (or your brand colors) 
• Design how you’d like. You can add icons, text, just icons, just text. Whatever you want. The key thing to remember is to group your text and icon together and make sure it’s all centered within the space. 

To group something, click on the first item, then hold down shift while clicking the second thing. Next, click group then arrange, center. Finally, move the new grouped item around the canvas until the centered lines come up.

• You have already done all the work. Here is the beauty of Canva. Click the 2 pages icon to duplicate your first page.

• Now edit the second page to match your next category. Do this until you have all of your highlight covers.
• Lastly download all the images and send them to your phone (air drop it baby)

4 | Loading in Your High Light Cover Photos to Instagram

This step trips a lot of people up because at first we all expect to just head to our profile page, click the plus sign by our highlights and change the cover photo. The only way to add a cover photo is to first post it to your story (and keep it there for 24 hours) and mark it as a highlight there. (Side note: it has to stay in your stories for 24 hours. If you delete it from your story after previously making it a highlight, it will delete from your highlighted stories if it hasn’t been 24 hours.) I’ve seen this done a few ways.

1. You can post all of your new graphics back to back and start off by telling your audience the next few stories are what they can expect from your Instagram Stories. It’s a great way to show your audience how you plan to add value and also gets those awkward posts out of the way.
2. You can post all of your graphics back to back and make a joke with your audience like…”feel free to tap on by…I’m just trying to update my highlights section” Totally a good option if it fits your style.

Don’t fret too much about this. Just suck it up buttercup, keep those highlight stories loaded for 24 hours and mark them as a highlight. To mark a particular story as a highlight, view the stories you currently have going right now, then click the heart highlight button in the bottom right. When creating a new “highlight” you’ll name it the categories you chose in section 1!

Now to edit the highlight, go to your profile and hold down on one of the highlights then click edit highlight.

Here you can edit the name, edit the cover and the title. You can also add archived stories!!! YAY if you forgot to highlight the story on the day you posted it!

That’s it!

Simple huh? It can be as simple or as detailed as you’d like it to be. But begin today in creating a simple, on brand Instagram Highlight Cover Photo that will set the tone when new people land on your Instagram profile. Let’s see what you’ve created!!! >> Share a screenshot of your Instagram profile below in the comments once you get your highlights all set!

Links to Connect

• Join the FREE Ambitious Motherhood Community
• FREE CLASS - How to Make Your First $1k Online Without Sacrificing Your Family Life
• Chat it out and pinpoint your monetizable brilliance by DM-ing Katie on Instagram 

Much Love,

Katie Fleming