It is no secret that social media is an essential tool for businesses to build trust with their audiences and attract new customers. Of those social media platforms, Instagram with over 2 billion monthly active users is an ideal place to begin building your brand presence.
There are an insane number of ways to get your content out on Instagram. If you head to your Instagram profile, and click the plus button in the top right hand corner, you’ll see all the different content types you can select from, which includes; reels, static posts, stories, story highlights, live videos and even curated guides.
As a result, it’s integral to use a mix of content types and understand how each can contribute to your broader strategy.
But whilst many creators and businesses have worked out how to post relevant content, it’s an art to curate that content and make it easily accessible for people to view.
It’s a well-known statistic that when you meet someone new, you have just 7 seconds to make an impression. We can take the same principle and apply it to your online brand. Apart from an optimized bio, the highlights section is one of the first things a new viewer will see, even before they explore your pinned posts or feed, so it makes sense to leverage it.
For example, if someone jumps on your page and is confused about (1) who you are, (2) what you do, or (3) how you do it. Do you really think they will follow you, or trust you enough to buy from your business?
Quick thought experiment: say you find a café on Instagram. Their food pictures are absolutely drool-worthy, but they have no information about their opening hours, their address, or anything about their menu.
How likely are you to spend extra time searching for that information?
Cue: Instagram Story Highlights
We’d recommend that business make two simple story highlights titled; (1) find us, and (2) our menu. This is an easy use case, but let’s look at how you can use Instagram Highlights to build a more robust brand story.
Step 1 – Have Banging Stories
First, it’s important to have good stories. If you’re wondering how to do that, see our other article: How to Create Compelling Instagram Stories For eCommerce Businesses?
The main recommendations from that article are:
- Have a clear and intentional business strategy.
- Choose natural lighting.
- Use the first three seconds.
- Include a call-to-action.
- Add special offers where you can.
Step 2 – How to Save Stories to Highlights
Now that you have some incredible stories, let’s briefly learn the basics on saving them to highlights. Highlights are essentially curated collections of your Instagram Stories which are permanently saved on your profile.
These highlights appear clearly below your bio and allow your followers to easily access important content even after it disappears from your regular story (after 24 hours).
To create compelling story highlights, follow these simple steps:
- Open your Instagram profile and tap the “+” button on the top right corner.
- Choose “story highlight”.
- Select the stories you want to include in your highlight.
- Give your highlight a relevant title.
- Choose a cover image that represents the content of your highlight effectively.
Once you’ve mastered the process of saving stories to highlights, it’s time to dive into the strategic aspect of structuring your highlights. Let’s explore three effective options that will help you tell your brand story and engage your audience effectively.
Step 3 – Using Story Highlights to Tell Your Brand Story
Option #1: Structuring Based On Services
Consider organizing your highlights around your range of products or services. This works best if you are a brand that offers 3-5 distinct services or treatments. For each, include the name of the service as the story title. The first slide could include a description of the service, followed by client testimonials, videos of the service experience, and lastly any FAQs that may arise.
For example, if you were a café, you could include your three services as “breakfast”, “lunch” and “wine night”. Your first slide would include your address, and the days and times that service is offered.
The second would be a picture of the corresponding menu and the third would be photos and videos of customers enjoying your food. By grouping relevant stories under these categories, it’s easier for customers to find the information they are interested in and navigate through your brand’s offerings effortlessly.
Option #2: Structuring based on the Year
If your brand has undergone a transformation in some way, highlighting your business journey through the years can be a lovely way to showcase your evolution, and any milestones. Treat each year as a “season” and create highlights that show-off the major achievements, products, events, or any campaigns that occurred during that year.
This chronological approach gives your followers a glimpse into your brand’s history and generates a sense of continuity. But, it still enables you to pay homage to previous versions of your brand’s identity. This would work well for clothing brands, or perhaps cafes that have a seasonal menu, where highlights could be grouped into “summer”, “winter”, “autumn” and “spring”.
Option #3: Structuring based on Webpage
We name this story highlight as such because it is resemblant of the tabs you might use on your webpage, and is an intuitive way to navigate content. For example, if you are a product-based business, you may have stories grouped into “shop” (which can be integrated with Instagram shop!), “FAQS”, “shipping and delivery” and “about the brand”.
This makes it easy for customers to browse at a glimpse and decide whether they want to shop from you. It provides a lot of credibility and trust, because policies and information are readily available.
Ultimately, Instagram Story Highlights are a powerful, and often overlooked, tool for businesses to convey their brand story and make full use of their digital space. By implementing one of our suggested strategies, you can attract new customers, and increase hype within your existing community.
Experiment with different highlight structures and make sure the information included is always up to date, and stays relevant over time.
[Recommended reading: The Best Times To Post On Instagram For Maximum Engagement]
[Image credits – Main photo: EyeEm; other images are from their respective Social Media Revolver articles]
