How to Make a Spotlight on Instagram

Your Instagram bio gives you 150 characters to make a first impression, but what if you could have a permanent spotlight showcasing your very best content right below it? You can, and it's called Instagram Highlights. This guide will walk you through exactly how to create, design, and strategize your Instagram Highlights to turn your profile into a powerful resource for new and returning followers.

What Is an Instagram Spotlight? (Hint: It’s Called a Highlight)

If you're asking how to create a "spotlight," you're most likely thinking of Instagram Highlights. These are the small, tappable circles that live on your profile forever, just below your bio and above your main grid. Think of them as curated playlists or file folders for your best Instagram Stories.

Unlike regular Stories that vanish after 24 hours, Highlights give your content a permanent home. This is huge for a few reasons:

• It's your brand's trailer. New visitors can instantly get a feel for who you are, what you do, and what you offer without having to scroll through months of posts.
• It saves you time. You can pre-answer frequently asked questions, showcase products, and share key information so you aren’t repeating yourself in DMs.
• It guides your audience. Highlights act as a navigation menu for your profile, directing people to exactly what they need, whether that's customer reviews, tutorials, or event details.

Essentially, Highlights turn your fleeting, ephemeral Stories into evergreen assets that work for your brand 24/7.

Your Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an Instagram Highlight

Before you get started, there's one setting to check. Instagram has to be saving your stories to its archive. This is usually on by default, but it's good to be sure. Go to your Profile → tap the three-line menu in the top right → Settings and Privacy → Archiving and downloading → make sure "Save story to archive" is toggled on.

Ready? Here’s how you can create your first Highlight in two simple ways.

Method 1: Creating a Highlight from Your Active Story

This is perfect for when you've just posted a Story and know right away that you want to save it.

1. Post your content to your Instagram Story as usual.
2. Tap on your profile picture to view your active Story.
3. In the bottom-right corner, you’ll see an icon that says "Highlight" with a heart inside a circle. Tap it.
4. A menu will pop up allowing you to add the Story to an existing Highlight or create a new one. Tap the “New” icon (+).
5. Give your new Highlight a descriptive name (e.g., "FAQs," "About Us," "Reviews"). You have up to 15 characters, but shorter is often better.
6. Tap “Add,” and the Highlight will instantly appear on your profile.

Method 2: Creating a Highlight from Your Story Archive

This is the best way to build Highlights using content you've posted in the past. It allows you to 'batch-create' entire collections at once.

1. Go to your Instagram profile page.
2. Underneath your bio, you’ll see a circle with a plus sign (+) labeled "New." Tap it.
3. This will open your Story Archive, where you can see all the Stories you've ever posted. Tap the circles of the Stories you want to include in this Highlight in the order you'd like them to appear.
4. Once you've selected your content, tap “Next” in the top-right corner.
5. On the next screen, you’ll get to name your Highlight and choose a cover image. We’ll get more into custom covers below, but for now, you can select one of the stories you've added as an image.
6. Tap “Done,” and your new curated collection is now live on your profile.

Keeping Your Highlights Fresh: How to Edit and Manage Them

Your Highlights should evolve with your brand. Keeping them updated is straightforward and only takes a few taps.

• To Add or Remove Stories: Want to add more content to a collection or take something outdated out? Just tap and hold the Highlight on your profile and select "Edit Highlight." From there, switch to the "Stories" tab, where you can select or deselect any piece of content from your archive.
• To Change a Name or Cover: In that same "Edit Highlight" menu, you can tap on the name to change it or select "Edit Cover" to choose a new image.
• To Reorder Highlights: Instagram doesn't let you drag and drop to reorder. Instead, the most recently updated Highlight moves to the front (far left) of the line. So, to move a Highlight to the front of the list, simply add a random story to it and then immediately remove that same story. The "update" will bump it to the first position.
• To Delete a Highlight: If a collection is no longer relevant, simply tap and hold it on your profile and select "Delete Highlight."

Beyond the Basics: Designing Custom Highlight Covers That Stand Out

While you can use an image from your saved Stories as a cover, creating custom covers is what gives your profile that polished, professional look. Consistent covers act as clear signposts, making your profile easier to navigate and reinforcing your brand identity.

Creating them is simpler than you think.

How to Design Your Covers

You don't need to be a graphic designer. Free tools like Canva or Adobe Express have thousands of templates and icons ready to go.

• Use Icons: Find simple, recognizable icons that represent the content in each highlight (e.g., a question mark for FAQs, a shopping cart for products, a person silhouette for "About Us").
• Stay On-Brand: Use your brand colors, fonts, and overall visual style. Consistency here makes your entire profile look more cohesive and professional.
• Keep it Clean: The circles are small, especially on mobile. Simple, bold icons or short, legible words work much better than busy photographs or complex designs.

How to Set Your Custom Cover

Unlike in the past, you no longer need to post your cover image to your Story first. The modern way is much easier.

1. Design your covers (a standard 1080x1920 px vertical format works perfectly) and save them to your phone’s camera roll.
2. On your Instagram profile, tap and hold the Highlight you want to change and select "Edit Highlight."
3. At the top of the editing screen, tap "Edit Cover."
4. Instead of choosing a Story, look for the small image icon on the left of the filmstrip at the bottom. Tap it!
5. This opens your phone’s photo library, allowing you to choose your custom cover image directly.
6. Zoom and adjust the image so it's perfectly centered in the circle, then tap "Done." Voila! A clean, branded cover without any extra clutter.

Strategic Highlight Ideas Every Brand Should Use

Now that you know how to make them, what should you actually put in your Highlights? Think about what a new visitor needs to know to understand and trust your brand.

Here are some of the most effective Highlight categories:

For Any Business or Creator:

• About Me/Us: Introduce yourself or your team. Share your mission, your story, and the "why" behind your brand. This builds a human connection.
• FAQs: What questions do you get over and over again? Put the answers here. This provides instant value and saves you endless time in DMs.
• How To/Tips: Share valuable knowledge. If you're a fitness coach, this could be "Workout Tips." If you run a bakery, "Baking Hacks." It establishes a great foundation of your expertise.
• Social Proof &, Reviews: This is one of the most important! Share screenshots of positive reviews, testimonials, customer results, or user-generated content (with permission, of course). Let your happy customers do the selling for you.
• Behind the Scenes (BTS): Showcasing videos and pictures of your office space, production process, or a day in the life helps your audience connect and build trust. Audiences get invested when they are invited into their journey rather than sold.

For E-commerce or Service-Based Businesses:

• Products/Services: Create dedicated Highlights for each of your core offerings. Show the product in action, explain its benefits, and link directly to the shop page from the original stories.
• Process: How does it work to buy from you or work with you? Walk people through the steps - from ordering and shipping to onboarding a new client. Clarity reduces purchase anxiety.
• Promos/Sales: Announce current promotions or upcoming sales here. It's a great spot to send people to see what deals are running. (Remember to remove the highlight once the promo has passed).

Final Thoughts

Mastering Instagram Highlights transforms your profile from a simple photo feed into a comprehensive resource that serves your audience and your business goals. By curating your best content into these permanent spotlights, you’re creating an on-demand guide that introduces your brand, answers questions, and builds trust with every tap.

The foundation of great Highlights, of course, is a steady stream of well-planned Instagram Stories. That's where we felt we could improve on the social management process. Instead of scrambling for daily ideas, a visual content calendar makes it easy to map out story sequences with intention, all with the goal of curating them into valuable Highlights, tutorials, or guides in mind. With Postbase, we built a modern tool to make scheduling all of your content - especially video-first formats like Stories and Reels - feel calm and organized, setting you up with the high-quality material you need to build a standout profile.