Imagine a customer visiting your profile and missing out on some of your best stories because of the 24-hour limit?
Thank god for Instagram story highlights.
Instagram turned 10 years old in 2020. The social media app has gone from a photo uploading and sharing app to a networking and e-commerce platform as well for businesses of all sizes.
A study by sprout social showed that globally, over 500 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day, surpassing Snapchat’s popular feature.
So, how are Instagram story highlights a great way for your business to generate leads?
Two words – repeat marketing
In this blog, we will cover –
- How to use Instagram story highlights for your business
- Tools to design the best Instagram story highlights
- Benefits of using story highlights on Instagram
How to use Instagram story highlights for your business
While Instagram stories allow you to post up to 24 hours, the highlight – a new feature by the social media app, allows you to save it in your profile for customers to view later. Let’s be honest, not everything is worthy of becoming a post on your feed!
How to use Instagram story highlights
Instagram story highlights are front and centre for your business, it is the second thing customers visiting your profile will see when they browse.
So, it is important to know what you are adding there.
Add categories for your highlights
What kind of business do you do? If you run a textile business, your Instagram story highlights should feature your collections, offers, tutorials, and perhaps events too.
Once you add stories to your Instagram, go to your profile and click the ‘+’ option on the bottom left or right corner below your bio. After that, categorise your Instagram stories into:
- Announcements and updates
- New products
- Tutorials
- Customers testimonials
- Brand partnerships
- Festive Seasons
A tip – Every time you add a new post, click on the arrow button and post it to your story. Later, add it to highlights.
Design a highlight cover
Instagram highlights need to look appealing. Design your highlights in connection with your brand aesthetic. You can choose to design a cover, but we recommend you do it anyway.
For example, Room Porn, an interior decor firm for beautiful home decor, opts for a minimal design. Their entire feed focuses on highlighting clean, well-decorated houses, so their highlight covers need to look the same.
Also read: Design tools your small business should use
Upload stories from archives
Did you know you can upload stories from your archives, all the way up to 2017? Nowadays, Instagram auto-saves your stories in the archives section in your settings. All you need to do is add the story to the highlight section.
You can edit or add to your highlight if you easily categorise your sections.
How to gain leads from your Instagram story highlights
Showcase testimonials on highlights over feed posts
Add customer testimonials, every single one of them, in your story highlights. This way, if anyone scrolls by your highlights, they need not look specifically for customer reviews in your posts.
Instagram for business is probably the best example in this case. The apps consistent ‘How-to’s on their stories draws customers in, even when the story is long gone. This is thanks to their highlights.
The app adds swipe up links to their videos every time they want to redirect their customers to another landing page and the good thing is, it gets saved to your highlights too.
If you want to sell on Instagram without a swipe up link, you can sell on Instagram using the Instamojo link instead. Collect payments, donations, and show off your products on Instagram easily with Instamojo payment links and the premium online store. No need for a verified profile or swipe up option.
Want to know more on growing your business on Instagram? Sign up for this free MojoVersity course!
Add highlights for seasonal events and holidays
This festive season is the perfect time to promote your brand online. Customers are actively shopping for gifts and new clothes, so do not neglect your story highlights.
Upload your festive offers, discounts and upcoming announcements and events on your stories and add them to highlights later.
A survey by techjury shows that over 25% of millenials use Instagram stories to find products and services.
Add Polls, stickers and quizzes to the highlights
Conduct frequent polls, quizzes and engage your customers with interactive content on your stories. Once you tag them, add their story to the highlights.
Also read: How to calculate engagement on your Instagram story highlights, by Hootsuite
Connect your social media to your Instamojo online store
If your brand has a strong social media presence, link it to your online store on Instamojo to attract more audience!
Follow the steps in the video below and link your social media to your Instamojo premium online store.
3 comments
I always admire your business advice that you give on Instamojo Blog. It is one of the greatest ideas to implement.
Hi Chethna,
Sounds like good I will implement in one of my news portal. I hope it will works for me as well. Thank you very much for such a wonderful info.
Hi Chethna
As we know Instagram is growing day by day like Facebook and whatsapp and I hope it will crossed facebook record. Just read your article and start to implement your advice and getting great results. Thanks a lot for this type of informative article.
Also I want to let you know that I was add 1 more strategy like starting PPC campaign as well in Instagram and got too good results.
Once again thank you very much.