If you’ve ever looked at another person’s or brand’s Instagram account profile, you’ve probably noticed a series of little circles on it. They are usually colorful and often seem designed for a specific purpose. But they’re not just there for aesthetics.
If you tap on them, they’ll usually open what’s called an Instagram Highlight. A highlight is basically just an Instagram story that has been chosen to be permanently featured on a given user’s profile. Stories are usually only 24 hours long, but if you choose to feature them as a highlight, they can live on your profile forever.
But back to those circles. They are called highlight covers. And they’re sort of an important entry point, aren’t they? Especially if you’re a brand, you’ll want these covers to reflect who you are as a company or person and entice people to watch these featured stories.
If that’s your goal, we can give you some pointers on how to up your Instagram highlight cover game so you can achieve it. In this guide, we’ll see what a highlight cover is, how to create one, and then how to add your highlight cover to your Instagram highlight.
Simply put, an Instagram highlight cover is one of those little circle icons on an Instagram account profile that when tapped opens its associated Instagram highlight. The image you see on the cover is usually (but not always) the first image in the Highlight slideshow itself.
Highlight coverage is usually default regardless of that first frame. (There are other ways to choose another image for your cover, but more on that later.) But either way, you’ll want to make sure that image is as aesthetically pleasing and as relevant to your brand or business as possible. narration. In the next two sections, we’ll see how you can do this.
In the following steps, we’ll go over the basics of what it takes to design your own Instagram highlight cover. Instead of just defaulting to the first image in your story, you can create your own highlight cover image and then use it as the first image in your story so it appears first in your highlight and then used as the cover highlight. Or you can create your own highlight cover image and then add it as a cover when prompted by the app. This way, the cover image doesn’t need to be part of your Highlight.
Step 1: Use a service like Canva to design your own highlight covers. If you want to create your own highlight covers (but not necessarily from scratch), you should consider using a graphic design platform like Canva. Canva offers thousands of free highlight cover templates to choose from that you can then customize and use for your own purposes.
And then, once you’re done editing your covers on Canva’s online image editor, you can just download them and insert them into your stories, or when prompted to edit your cover while creating new highlight or edit an existing highlight, you can tap the photo icon to add one of your Canva-designed images as your cover.
2nd step: There are design rules for creating highlight covers. So follow them. If you’re not using a pre-made template to create your own highlight covers, you should make sure to follow a few design guidelines first so your DIY covers always look neat and professional.
According to social media management software developer Bufferyour cover images should contain the following:
- Design elements should be centered so that they fit perfectly when Instagram crops your image into its highlighted cover circle.
- Image dimensions must be: 1080 x 1920
- The aspect ratio should be: 9:16
Step 3: Remember to use the caption under your highlight covers. When you create a highlight you have the option to write a small caption for your highlight cover. Go ahead and write one if you have a catchy or memorable caption/title for your highlight.
You can also add emojis here. Have fun with it. The caption is yet another way to draw attention to your highlights. Plus, it may give your viewers another clue about what that climax is about.
There are several ways to add an Instagram Highlight cover. You can include the cover image you want in your original Instagram story as the first image, and your Highlight can use it as the default cover image.
You can choose a different image from your story as your cover image. You can select an entirely different image from your phone while you create the highlight. You can even edit the cover of an existing Highlight and choose a different cover image from the Highlight story or choose another image from your phone – lots of possibilities. For the purposes of this guide, we’ll focus on two main methods: one for creating a highlight and one for changing the cover of an existing highlight.
Step 1: When creating a highlight:
Select your Profile picture icon. Then choose the plus sign icon > Climax of the story. Choose the images you want to include in your Highlight. Select Next.
On the Titre screen, if desired, enter your caption in the box with the flashing cursor. Then select Edit cover if you want to change the default cover image to another one.
Then choose a different image from your Highlight to be the cover or choose another image from your phone by selecting the Image icon at the bottom of your screen. If you chose to do the latter, choose the image you want from the next screen, then select the Arrow icon in the upper right corner. Then select Do. Then select Do encore.
2nd step: Change the cover of an existing Highlight:
Open the Instagram mobile app. Select your Profile Picture icon in the lower right corner of the screen. Long press the Highlight cover circle icon you want to modify.
From the menu that appears, choose Edit Highlight. Select Edit cover.
Then you can choose a different image from your highlight to be the highlight cover, or you can select the Image icon at the bottom of the screen to choose a different image from your phone. If you chose another photo for your Highlight, select Do. And then select Do encore.
On the other hand, if you choose the Image icon, select the photo you want on the next screen > choose the icon Arrow icon > select Do. Select Do encore.
Editors’ Recommendations
–
