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How to customize instagram highlight cover


How to Create Beautiful Instagram Highlight Covers (40 Free Icons)

Instagram Highlight covers make a great first impression.

Located right below the bio section of your Instagram profile, they provide a polished look for your Instagram Highlights and draw attention to your best Instagram Story content.

And you don’t have to be a hip influencer to use them. Orgs of all stripes from government institutions to Fortune 500 companies use them to great effect.

Covers are an easy win for any brand that banks on aesthetics. (And on Instagram, that’s everyone.)

The good news is that even if you don’t have access to a graphic design team, they’re easy to make.

We’ll walk you through all the steps to create your own Instagram highlight covers. As a bonus, we have a free pack of icons to help you get started.

How to create an Instagram highlight

How to create a new Instagram highlight from your profile

How to create your own Instagram Highlight covers

5 tips for using Instagram highlight covers and icons

Download your free pack of 40 customizable Instagram Stories Highlights Icons now. Optimize your profile and set your brand apart from the competition.

Create highlights to keep your best Story content at the top of your Instagram profile permanently.

1. In your Story, tap Highlight in the bottom right corner.

2. Choose the Highlight you want to add your Story to.

3. Or, tap New to create a new Highlight, and type out a name for it. Then click Add.

And that’s it! You just created an Instagram highlight.

Have an idea for a new highlight? Or maybe you want to add a few different Stories at once?

Follow these steps to create a new Highlight from your Instagram profile:

1. Go to your profile and tap the +New button (the big plus sign).

2. Pick the Stories you want to add to your new Highlight. Pro tip: Instagram gives you an archive of your stories going back years. So don’t be afraid to do a little digging for those Story gems.

3. Tap Next and name your new Highlight.

4. Choose your Highlight cover, and tap Done.

Don’t have a highlight cover yet? Read on.

Instagram will allow you to use any image you like for your highlight covers.

BUT your brand deserves better than just “any image.”

This space is prime real estate for converting lurkers to followers. You want to leave an impression.

If you’re crunched for time, Adobe Spark has pre-made covers that you can customize and use.

But if you want more control over your Instagram brand, these steps will show you how to easily build a great Instagram highlight cover from scratch (or almost-scratch).

Step 1: Log in to Visme

Log into your account on Visme or create a free account on visme.co.

Step 2: Create a new image that is sized for Stories.

From the main Visme dashboard, click Custom Size in the top right corner, then type in the Instagram Story image dimensions (1080 x 1920 pixels). Click Create! 

Step 3: Get our free icon set

Download your free pack of 40 customizable Instagram Stories Highlights Icons now. Optimize your profile and set your brand apart from the competition.

Once you’re done downloading, unzip the file and choose your favorites. (You can use them with or without our professionally designed backgrounds.)

Step 4: Upload your icons to Visme

Go to My files in the left-hand menu, click Upload, and select the icons you would like to add.

Once you upload the icon image, click on it. If you can’t see your icon on your canvas after you’ve uploaded it, don’t worry. It’s most likely because the icon is white lines on a transparent background. We’ll fix this in the next step.

Step 5: Create your background

Right-click anywhere on your image and click Background. A quick-access background bad will appear in the top left corner of your workspace. Here, you can select a background color, or add a brand color in the HEX code field.

When you change the background color (to anything other than white, your icon will appear).

Step 6: Download your highlight covers from Visme

Name your project. Then click Download in the top right corner. Choose your file type (PNG or JPG are both fine). Then click the Download button.

Download your free pack of 40 customizable Instagram Stories Highlights Icons now. Optimize your profile and set your brand apart from the competition.

Get the free icons right now!

Your cover will be downloaded to your hard drive.

Repeat this process with other cover designs.

Pro tip: Now is a great time to make sure your Instagram account has your Story archive enabled. This is important if you want to go back and see your old Stories without downloading them to your phone.

Step 7: Edit your existing highlights to add your new covers

You no longer have to add an image to your Story (where all your followers will have to swipe past it) in order to make it a highlight cover. Instead, you can just edit the highlight directly:

  1. Go to your Instagram profile.
  2. Tap the highlight whose cover you’d like to change.
  3. Tap More in the bottom right corner.
  4. Tap Edit Highlight.
  5. Tap Edit Cover.
  6. Choose the image icon to access your phone’s photo library.
  7. Choose your beautiful cover.
  8. Tap Done (actually, tap it three times.)

Do this for each of the stories you want to add covers to.

Voila! Your on-brand Instagram highlight covers are now gracing your profile and unifying your look. Magnifique.

5 tips for using Instagram highlight covers and icons

Now that you know how easy it is to make your own unique highlight covers, we’ve got some time-saving tips to make them as effective as possible.

Show off your brand’s aesthetic

Your brand has its favourite colours, font, capitalization—and possibly even some favorite emojis. Your highlight covers are definitely the place to show these off.

That said, keep in mind that less is more. Those little portholes are pretty small, after all. Clarity is key.

Don’t be afraid to experiment

Your Instagram highlights don’t have to do it all. They can do one thing very well.

For instance, Red Bull’s highlights used to be fairly conventional (e.g., Events, Projects, Video, etc.) But now they give each of their athletes their own highlight. All we get is a face, a name, and an emoji. Intriguing.

Meanwhile, the New York Times takes Stories literally. They populate their highlights with exhaustive yet readable primers on complicated political subjects. They also create fun, snackable Stories about appealing subjects.

Either way, their cover style is perfectly consistent, which helps make the wide reach of their topics more manageable.

Be consistent in your organization

There are absolutely no rules when it comes to organizing your Instagram highlights. (Brb, my inner librarian needs to go rail antacids. )

But, some brands organize their highlights like they would their website (e.g., About, Team, FAQ). Some brands organize by collection or product (e.g., Winter ‘20, New Arrivals, Makeup Line).

I’m here to tell you that however you choose to organize, remember to approach it from your audience’s perspective.

In other words: if they know what they’re going to see, they’re more likely to tap.

Highlight the Stories that matters most

Ask yourself what’s most important to your audience. What are they here to see? This season’s collection? Today’s schedule? Or something that is useful for the longer-term, like, for instance, how to pair your flagship earbuds?

The Met, for instance, prioritizes potential visitors. It keeps a helpful guide to this week’s exhibitions at the top of its highlight reel.

Convert your audience to customers

With the right covers, you can introduce new eyes to your best shoppable Stories and swipe-up content (if you have an Instagram for business profile with more than 10,000 followers). Try using our shopping bag icon, for instance.

For more tips on selling products using your Instagram Stories, check out our complete guide to Instagram shopping.

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How to Make Custom Instagram Highlight Covers

Instagram Highlights, though fairly new, are now an important part of any marketer’s Instagram strategy. Brands and marketers use them in creative and useful ways to engage their audiences and get the most out of their Instagram accounts.

However, not everyone has mastered the key to optimizing these Highlights by using the right cover images. A lot of people don’t even know that they can select a customized cover image for their Highlights.

If you are someone who has ever wondered how some brands add beautiful and consistent designs as their covers, then this is the post for you.

In this post, we will discuss not only the best practices for creating good cover images, but also the ways in which you can design them. So, read on and become an expert at designing the best cover images for your Highlights.

How to Make Custom Instagram Highlight Covers:
  • What is an Instagram Highlight Cover?
  • Tips For Creating Good Instagram Highlight Covers
  • How to Make Customized Instagram Highlight Covers
  • How to Upload Instagram Highlight Covers

What is an Instagram Highlight Cover?

As we all know, Instagram Highlights are essentially the Stories that you want to showcase on your profile permanently. And, Instagram Highlights cover images are the pictures that you see in the form of circles at the top of your Instagram profile.

Image Source: Instagram

As Instagram Highlights are showcased right at the top of your profile, it is important to select the right cover pictures. These should be catchy enough to grab the attention of your audience and make people want to view them.

So, it is important to select or design the best cover images for your Highlights as they play an important part in forming your brand aesthetic.

Tips For Creating Good Instagram Highlight Covers

As discussed, your Instagram Highlights cover images should be designed in a way that immediately grabs the attention of your audience. And, since it forms a part of your brand aesthetic, it should be consistent with the colors and design elements that you use for your posts.

Keeping that in mind, here are a few tips for selecting the best cover images for your Highlights.

Make Them Self-Explanatory

One tactic that a lot of brands and marketers follow is to make the cover images self-explanatory. For example, if your Highlight is about beauty tips, then the cover image can be something related to that. Or, you can even make it as simple as writing “Beauty Tips” on a colored background and adding that as your cover image.

What this accomplishes is that it helps your audience make an immediate decision about whether they have any interest in seeing it or not.

Take the cover images from H&M, for example. The images tell you all you need to know about what you can expect inside.

Source: instagram.com

Maintain Consistency

Highlights are shown in horizontal sequence at the top of your Instagram profile. It is important to maintain a similar design and aesthetic for all your cover images so that they look good as a collective. 

If you use different types of images for different Highlights, your profile may end up looking unorganized and chaotic.

See how Daniel Wellington has chosen to keep their cover images consistent not just with each other, but with the brand logo as well.

Image Source: Instagram

Use Quirky Designs and Icons

Your cover images should be visually-attractive and attention-grabbing. You can use beautiful pictures, icons, or other illustrations to achieve that. 

Here’s an example of how the beauty brand Sephora does it.

Source: instagram.com

How to Make Customized Instagram Highlight Covers

Making an Instagram Highlight cover is just like designing any other image for social media and requires a good photo editing app or tool. The only thing to keep in mind is to use the right image size as the cover picture gets cropped in a circular shape. 

So, you need to design an image that has all the important elements right in the center with ample space on all sides. This will ensure that when the image is cropped into a circle, it still looks perfect.

If you can use an app that already has the option to design a cover picture in the right size then that’s the best option for you. And, there are such photo editing apps that provide this option, so you don’t have to worry about image size. 

There are several tools that you can use to create customized Instagram Highlight covers. However, to explain the process in more detail, we will use the popular photo editing app, Canva, as an example.

How to Design an Instagram Highlight Cover Using Canva

Here is a step-by-step guide to creating an Instagram Highlight cover using Canva.

Step 1

Go to the Canva app and click on the + icon to start designing your image.

Step 2

Select the Instagram Story template.

Step 3

Click on the blank template to see the option for adding images or colors.

Step 4

Select the colour of your choice, preferably a brand colour, and add to your design.

Step 5

Now click on the + icon to add graphics, icons, illustrations etc. In this case, we will see how to add an icon.

Step 6

Select the “Illustrations” option and then “Icon” from the list of options.

Step 7

Add an icon of your choice and change the size and colour as you like.

Step 8

Save the image to your device and share as an Instagram Story.

Once you share your image as a Story, it will be available to be added as a Highlight and the Highlight cover. Just make sure that you have allowed the “archive” option in your Instagram Story settings. This automatically saves all your Instagram Stories to be later added as Highlights.

To allow archiving of Stories, go to your account settings and select the “Privacy” settings. From the options menu select the option to change your “Story” settings. Just toggle on “Save to archive” option and you’re good to go.

We will discuss how to upload the image you designed as your Highlight cover in a later section. This section just aimed at giving you a basic idea of how to design and post an image that can be used as your Highlight cover. 

Please note that there are numerous tools that you can use to design your cover images. Some of these are mentioned in the section below.

Other Tools to Create Customized Instagram Highlight Covers

Here are some of the best photo editing tools that you can use to design your Instagram Highlights cover pictures.

InShot

This is a popular and high-rated photo-editing app that you can use to create beautiful Instagram Highlights cover pictures. 

The process is quite similar to the one discussed above, as it also has preset templates for different image sizes. So, all you need to do is select the right template and get creative with your design skills.

You can find this app for both Android and iOS devices.

StoryArt

This is another great tool for designing Instagram Stories and cover images for your Highlights. It provides numerous templates, design effects, and other useful tools needed to create beautiful designs. 

The interface is fairly easy to use and does not require any design skills on your part.

This app is also available on both Android and iOS devices

How to Upload Instagram Highlight Covers

To upload an image as an Instagram Highlight cover, it must first be added to your Highlights. This means that you need to first add an Instagram Story with the image that you want to upload as your Highlight cover. Then, you need to make it a Highlight for you to be able to use it as an Instagram Highlight cover.

Here is the detailed process of how you can change the cover picture for your Instagram Highlights.

  1. Go to your profile and click and hold the Highlight for which you want to change the cover picture.
  2. You will see a list of options from which you need to select “Edit Highlight.”
  3. Select the “Edit Cover” option right at the top.
  4. You will see a list of images to select from.
  5. Choose the one you want as your cover and save.

If you want to add another image to as your cover that is not currently a part of your Highlight, then you need to first make it your Story and then Highlight. Follow the process below for that.

  1. Post an Instagram Story and Highlight it using the heart icon in the bottom-right corner.
  2. For old Stories, you can go to your profile and click on the + icon to make a new Highlight.
  3. To add an old Story to your current Highlights, you need to click and hold that Highlight, click on the edit option, and then add the desired image.
  4. Once the new image reflects in your Highlight, you can make it your cover image using the process mentioned above.

Conclusion

Selecting good cover images for your Highlights is important for maintaining your brand aesthetic and get more views. Use this post as your go-to guide for making beautiful, customized cover images for your Highlights.

How to add and change Instagram highlights correctly

Stories on Instagram* live only a day, but they can be returned using albums (highlights). This is convenient if you don’t want to forget valuable shots and important moments in life, and it’s also useful for work: with the help of albums, you can create thematic headings. A list of such ideas can be found in the article “15+ Ideas for Instagram* Highlights that anyone can implement”.

In this article we will analyze the technical part: how to add, change and hide stories from the current one. nine0003

How to add Stories to Instagram Stories*

You can add both recent Stories and previously released Stories to Stories.

How to put the actual on Instagram *:

  1. We publish stories.
  2. We return to the feed of publications.
  3. Click "Select" on the published story.
  4. Select an album to save or create a new one (see below for creating albums).
  5. Stories are saved to Topical. nine0018
Adding new stories to the current one

How to add stories from the archive to the current one:

1. Go to your personal tab in the Instagram app*. Click "Add" in the feed under the profile header.

2. Select the stories you want to add to the album. The number is not limited, one story can be added to several albums at once. As you choose, click "Next".

How to add old stories to current

3. Edit the cover art and name it . The maximum title length is 16 characters. You can use numbers, symbols, and emoji. For the cover, you can use frames from stories uploaded to the album, or click on the gallery icon to select images from your phone.

Instagram* In any case, write down the name, so if you don't want a signature, then use an invisible space - copy it from here, it is between the brackets (⠀).

Important : Create icon covers if you want to style your profile in the same style. For more details, see the articles “How to make a cover for Instagram* Highlights Stories” and “How to make an Instagram highlight*: instructions and tricks”.

Greenfield, Inostranka and Leroy Merlin highlight cover design options

4. Click Finish . The current one is saved in your profile and is available for viewing by subscribers. Unfortunately, Stories view statistics will no longer be displayed in the current one. nine0003 Keeping up-to-date on Instagram*

Is it possible to add up-to-date on Instagram* without stories? No, you won't be able to upload a picture or video from the gallery right away - you'll have to create a story anyway.

How to edit Instagram highlights*

How to edit Instagram highlights*:

1. Click on highlights . Next, click on the “More” item in the lower right corner and select “Edit current”. By the way, in the same menu you can delete a specific story from the album, send it to friends in direct, copy the link or share it through other social networks. nine0003

2. Change Actual . Two tabs will appear: in the "Selected" you can click on stories and remove unnecessary ones, in the "Add" tab, respectively, add saved stories from the archive.

Edit highlights

3. Change title and cover . The actions are exactly the same as when creating covers and captions, which we described above.

4. Click "Finish" . Current edited.

Adding new stories, changing the cover in highlights

How to rearrange what's hot on Instagram*

There's no official way to change the order of what's hot on Instagram*, but the app keeps the order of albums according to the editing date. To swap highlights, just edit the desired album and it will automatically move forward.

  1. Go to the current and click "More", then - "Edit current".
  2. Go to the "Add" tab and select any story, the date is not important. nine0018
  3. The album has moved forward.

So, with the help of simple manipulations, you can build the desired order of the albums.

Changing the order of the current in Instagram*

Important: when deleting stories from the current in edit mode, the order of the albums will not change.

How to hide Instagram highlights*

On Instagram* you can hide stories from users and show them only to your close circle. The list can be customized - as a result, only those who are part of the group will see stories. This also applies to the present. nine0003

How to make relevant for friends:
1. Add stories . Choose the place of publication: "Close friends".
2. Adding friends . We make a list of those who will see the story - you can add from one person.

Publish stories for friends

3. Go to the feed . We select "Select" and create a new album: we prescribe the name and edit the cover, if necessary.

Add stories for friends to the current

4. Done . Now only friends from the list will see this album. For comparison, in the screenshot below: in the first picture, this is how a friend’s list of highlights looks like, and in the second, for someone who is not on the list.

How friends see their profile on Instagram*

There is another way to hide stories and highlights from a specific person.

How to hide stories and current from another user:

1. Go to "Settings" . Select the "Privacy" section. nine0003

2. Select "Stories". Next, specify the accounts of those people who do not need to show your stories.

Closing stories and current from users

3. Done . Now the selected people will not show your stories and current.

What does a profile look like with hidden stories and the current one

In conclusion

We plan to release stories in SMMplanner

Have you figured out the current one? Now it only remains to publish stories and scatter them into categories. Well, our SMMplanner service will help you plan the release of stories - you can add stickers, do polls, change backgrounds and connect Canva to create designs. This is convenient if you often publish content and do not want to be intrusive - the scheduler will help you create a publishing plan at least a month in advance. nine0003

Highlights on Instagram - how to make and add a story to Highlights

The Highlights on Instagram feature allows you to save stories in a special archive that will be available only to you, and later create collections from them that are available to everyone. This feature appeared on December 5, 2017, and since then has been actively used by bloggers, companies as part of the Instagram promotion .

What are Instagram highlights and how does this feature work

Before Highlights, stories on the social network only lasted 24 hours. The new feature allowed users not only to save stories to revisit later, but also to create compilations of the best moments and share them with friends.

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Story Highlights - actual stories - displayed in the description of the user's profile. You can add an unlimited number of stories to each new collection. All of them will be displayed as normal stories, in chronological order. nine0003

How to make and add Highlights to Instagram

Simultaneously with the Highlights feature, Instagram introduced automatic saving of stories. Now, after 24 hours, they do not disappear, but are moved to the archive - they can be shared, reviewed later, or added to the collection. You can add to collections stories saved in the archive, that is, created after December 5, 2017.

To create a new collection, upload multiple stories, from one to infinity. More about using Stories read our article. Once downloaded, go to your profile and click the "new" button in the Highlights section.

You will see a window with all saved stories. Select any of them in the order you would like later when displaying the Highlights compilation. Select the cover of the collection from the thumbnails of the story. Then write the name - it can contain up to 16 characters with spaces.

Important: by default, the cover of the new album is the image of the first story, cropped to the center. You can change the story that will become the cover and its centering. nine0198

After adding the stories, cover and title, save the new highlights . They will appear in your profile description and will be available to all users who visit your page. Collections will appear as normal stories. Their number is not limited - you can add 10, 20 or 100 "best moments", blog categories, product descriptions.

How to design and use beautifully

The Highlights feature can be used for promotion. Browse competitor profiles and use their experience or develop your own original ideas. For example, you can:

  • Create a collection of for each day if you are a famous blogger or public figure. So the user can easily see what you did yesterday, a week or a month ago.
  • Represent each individual item in your selection. This is true for shops on Instagram. By adding the description and benefits of each product to a separate collection, you systematize the information and make the search more convenient.
  • Create a section called "about us" and publish interesting facts about the company, team or workdays in it. This will increase user engagement, which means that in theory it will affect the ranking of your posts in the general feed.
  • Divide the blog into categories - for example, "About politics", "About stars", "About animals". This is true for bloggers with a variety of topics for releases.
  • Create a price list - this will make it easier for users to find prices. If you sell several products, you can create one collection. If a lot - several albums categorized. nine0018
  • Sell advertising space. This usage idea is also relevant for users with large followings.
  • Publish descriptions of promotions and discounts. So they will be in a prominent place, and users will be more active.

Read also: How to change your Instagram information

How to change or delete

Published Highlights can be edited or deleted. To change or delete them, go to your profile, tap on the desired collection and hold your finger on the screen until a pop-up window appears. Choose the option you need - edit or delete. nine0003

In edit mode, you can change the name of the collection, its cover, add another story to the best moments. You can also delete from the "best moments" of history that have lost their relevance.

Article in the topic: How to make covers for current stories on Instagram

In the delete mode, the system will ask you again if you really want to delete the published album. If you confirm the operation, it is permanently deleted. But the stories published in it are saved in the archive - you can create a new collection from them. Also, you can download any Stories from the Highlights section. nine0003

Why Highlights doesn't work

Old app

If you haven't updated Instagram in a while, the feature won't work. To be able to use Highlights, please update the app to version 25 or later.

System crash

If you have the latest version of the app and still don't have Highlights, try reinstalling or restarting it.

Important: if neither updating nor reinstalling helped, write to the technical support service of the social network.

Learn more