How to Organize Highlights on Instagram

Your Instagram Highlights sit right below your bio, acting as the dynamic, visual welcome mat for your profile. They are curated collections of your best Stories, giving you prime real estate to tell your brand’s story, answer common questions, and guide new followers on exactly what to do next. This guide will walk you through everything from high-level strategy to the nuts-and-bolts of setting them up, helping you transform your Highlights from a random collection into a powerful branding tool.

First, Why Do Instagram Highlights Even Matter?

Before getting into the "how," it's important to understand the "why." Well-organized Highlights aren't just for aesthetics, they are a strategic asset for any creator, brand, or business on Instagram. They serve several vital functions that can directly impact your growth, engagement, and sales.

They Create a Powerful First Impression

When someone lands on your profile for the first time, you have just a few seconds to convince them to stick around. Your profile picture, bio, and Highlights are the first things they see. While your bio tells them what you do, your Highlights show them. Professionally designed Highlight covers with clear categories signal that you take your brand seriously and make your profile feel complete and inviting. They essentially function like the main navigation menu on a website, offering visitors clear paths to the information they need most.

They Extend the Life of Your Best Content

Instagram Stories are powerful because of their ephemeral, in-the-moment feel. But their biggest strength is also their biggest weakness: they disappear after 24 hours. All that time you spent creating a compelling tutorial, running a detailed Q&,A, or sharing powerful testimonials vanishes. Highlights rescue your best content from that fate, making it permanently accessible to your audience. This turns a fleeting moment into an evergreen resource that can serve new followers long after the original Story has expired.

They Educate and Convert Followers

Used strategically, Highlights can streamline your customer's journey. You can create dedicated collections for frequently asked questions (FAQs), which saves you from answering the same DMs repeatedly. You can build trust with "Testimonials" or "Reviews." You can drive sales with a "Shop" Highlight showcasing your products or a "Services" Highlight detailing your offers. They act as a silent salesperson, working 24/7 to educate your audience and guide them toward conversion.

The Building Blocks: Planning Your Highlight Strategy

The secret to effective Highlights has very little to do with the Instagram app itself and everything to do with the planning you do beforehand. Winging it will leave you with a cluttered, confusing collection. Intentional planning creates a seamless user experience.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Start by asking yourself one simple question: "What do I want people to learn or do after viewing my Highlights?" Your answer will shape every other decision. Are you trying to:

• Build brand authority and trust?
• Educate your audience about your process?
• Generate leads for your services?
• Drive traffic to your blog or another platform?
• Sell more products directly?

A personal coach might aim to build trust, so their Highlights would focus on testimonials, client results, and free tips. An e-commerce brand wants to sell products, so their Highlights might prioritize new arrivals, user-generated content, and a "How to Shop" guide. Get clear on your primary objective first.

Step 2: Brainstorm Your Highlight Categories

With your goals in mind, you can now outline your main content "buckets" or categories. Initially, it's better to start with fewer, more impactful Highlights rather than overwhelming visitors with too many options. Aim for 3-5 core categories to get started.

Here are some field-tested ideas for different types of accounts:

For E-commerce or Product-Based Businesses:

• Shop: A direct showcase of your products, ideally with product tags.
• Reviews: Screenshots of five-star reviews or user-generated content.
• FAQs: Cover questions about shipping, returns, materials, etc.
• How To: Short tutorials on how to use your product.
• Behind the Scenes (BTS): Show your workshop, team, or creation process to build connection.

For Service Providers, Coaches, or Consultants:

• Services/Offers: Clearly outline exactly what you offer.
• Results: Case studies or powerful testimonials from past clients.
• The Process: Walk potential clients through what it's like to work with you, step by step.
• Free Tips: Offer genuine value and showcase your expertise.
• About Me: Tell your story and what drives you to do what you do.

For Content Creators or Personal Brands:

• Start Here: A welcome Highlight telling new followers who you are and what your content is about.
• Resources: Share your favorite tools, books, or resources.
• Q&,A: A place to house answers to the questions you get most often.
• Tutorials: Step-by-step guides related to your niche.
• Travel/Life: Glimpses into your lifestyle to build a personal connection.

Step 3: Design Branded Highlight Covers

Consistency is everything. Your Highlight covers should feel like a natural extension of your brand's visual identity. A mismatched or messy set of covers can make your profile look unprofessional, while a cohesive set creates an immediate sense of polish and appeal.

Here’s how to create them easily:

1. Use a simple design tool. Something like Canva is perfect for this. They have templates that make it incredibly easy.
2. Start with the correct dimensions. The ideal format is a 1080 x 1920 pixels canvas, the same as a standard Instagram Story.
3. Incorporate your brand elements. Use your brand's color palette and fonts. If you don't have these defined, choose 2-3 colors that match your overall feed aesthetic.
4. Think in icons. Since the cover will be displayed in a small circle, complex images or text won't work. Simple, universally understood icons are best. An icon of a shopping cart for "Shop" or a speech bubble for "FAQs" works perfectly.
5. Keep it clean. The main goal is clarity. Don't clutter the design. A simple icon on a solid brand-colored background is often the most effective approach.

Once you have your designs, save them to your phone's camera roll so they're ready to upload.

How to Create and Organize Your Highlights: A Step-by-Step Guide

With your plan and custom covers ready, the technical side is straightforward. Here’s exactly how to set everything up.

Creating a Highlight from Your Story Archive

This is the best way to build your Highlights, as it gives you access to every Story you've ever posted (as long as your Archive setting is on).

1. Go to your Instagram profile. Under your bio, you'll see circles for your existing highlights. Tap the “+ New” button on the far left.
2. This action opens up your Instagram Story Archive. Tap to select all the individual Stories you want to be included in this specific Highlight. You can choose as many as you'd like.
3. Once you’ve made your selections, tap “Next.”
4. On the next screen, you can set the name and cover. Tap “Edit Cover” and then tap the image icon on the far left to access your phone’s camera roll. Select the branded cover you designed for this category.
5. Give your Highlight a short, clear name (Instagram limits it to 15 characters, but shorter is better). Things like “About Us,” “Reviews,” or “Process” work well.
6. Tap "Add" (on iPhone) or "Done" (on Android), and your new Highlight is now live on your profile.

Editing an Existing Highlight

Your business evolves, and your Highlights should too. You might need to add new testimonials, remove old product information, or just swap a few stories around.

1. On your profile, find the Highlight you wish to update. Tap and hold your finger on it.
2. A menu will appear. Select “Edit Highlight.”
3. From this screen, you can change the name and tap "Edit Cover" to change the cover image.
4. To change the content, go to the “Stories” tab. Here you can un-select old Stories to remove them or choose additional Stories from your archive to add them.
5. Tap "Done" when you’re finished.

Ordering Your Highlights (This is Important!)

You can't just drag and drop your Highlights to change their order. Instagram automatically orders them based on the last one you edited, with the most recently updated Highlight appearing first (on the far left). This is a game-changing piece of information you can use to your advantage. You can strategically arrange your Highlights to create a specific user journey.

Let’s say you want your Highlights to appear in this order: 1. Start Here | 2. Services | 3. Reviews | 4. FAQ.

To achieve this specific order, you need to edit them in the reverse order:

1. First, edit the Highlight you want to be last. In this case, that's "FAQ". Tap and hold it, hit "Edit Highlight," add and then immediately remove a random story from the archive, and hit "Done." That's it! This quick edit counts as an update without changing the content.
2. Next, do the same for the Highlight you want to be second-to-last ("Reviews").
3. Then, edit the "Services" Highlight.
4. Finally, edit the Highlight you want to appear first on your page ("Start Here"). Once you save this one, Instagram will push it to the very front (the far left position), and the others will line up behind it in the order you edited them.

Advanced Strategies for High-Impact Highlights

Once you've mastered the basics, you can start using your Highlights in even smarter ways to support your business goals.

Use Highlights as a Content Funnel

Think about the strategic order you just learned. You can use it to guide a new follower on a specific path. A great flow might look like:

• 1. "Start Here": Introduces you and your mission. Grabs their attention.
• 2. "The Problem": Agitates the pain point your audience faces - and that you solve.
• 3. "The Solution": Details your services or products as the solution.
• 4. "Results": Provides social proof via testimonials and case studies.
• 5. "Book/Shop": Gives a clear call to action to take the next step.

Keep Your Content Fresh

Just because Highlights are permanent doesn't mean you should set them and forget them. Schedule a quarterly check-in to review your Highlight content. Remove any Stories with outdated information, refresh your testimonials with new ones, and add any recent projects or product launches. This keeps your profile feeling current and relevant.

Final Thoughts

Organizing your Instagram Highlights transforms your profile from a simple collection of images into a strategic resource for lead generation, customer education, and brand storytelling. By planning your categories, creating cohesive covers, and mastering the ordering system, you can effectively guide visitors, build trust, and turn passing followers into loyal community members.

We know that consistently creating amazing content for those Highlights is a massive part of a social media manager’s job. From ideation sessions to shooting and editing, a lot of work goes into the stories that eventually earn their place on your profile. That's why we designed an ultra-clean visual content calendar in Postbase. We use it to plan our video content weeks in advance, see exactly what's going live, and ensure our messaging is consistent - all without getting lost in a spreadsheet. It simplifies the whole planning process, giving us more time to focus on creating content that connects.