Instagram highlight allows you to include stories in your Profile. You can now make your interesting stories permanent, and all viewers will be able to learn more about your account by viewing them. Hence, making a cool Instagram highlight cover is critical to enticing your followers.
Instagram highlight cover, like any other cover photo, plays an essential role in attracting views, summarizing your content, and telling your followers right away what your account is all about.
The majority of Instagram influencers and businesses use the cover to express their brand. For example, a cooking Insta account may include a cooking utensil icon as a cover, whereas a music-based account may include an album, title of a song, etc., as a cover.
Customizing Instagram highlight or story covers isn’t just for brands and influencers. You can also personalize your highlight cover to boost your social media presence.
And creating excellent Instagram covers isn’t that difficult. Anyone with access to the internet and a good device can make a decent cover in under a minute.
Therefore, please stick with us until the end of this tutorial to learn everything there is to know about customizing highlight covers on Instagram. You can also learn to repost a video on Instagram if you have time.
Before We Begin
Before we start customizing a cool highlight cover, let’s learn more about Instagram highlight first.
The Instagram highlight is a feature that lets you permanently save your Stories. You can easily display multiple stories in a single highlight in your Profile.
When your followers visit your Profile, most of the time, what they are trying to do is learn more about you or your business.
So, including various highlights with a cool cover can speak volumes about your brand. And, as we all know, a good brand with a positive impression is all we need to stand out from the crowd.
The most important aspects of a good Instagram profile are:
- A short bio.
- A link to your website (if you have one).
- A brief story about yourself or your work.
That’s why a great highlight with a decent cover is essential for making a good impression when anyone visits your Profile.
If you have a personal account, create a good cover for various highlights from your life, such as when you travel, when you visit places with your family, and so on.
Also, for a professional Instagram account, you’ll need a custom cover that emphasizes your brand to your followers.
Such highlight covers do not have to be overly complicated. A simple icon with a few letters can work wonders for your Profile’s aesthetic.
However, it is easier if you know the proper tools to customize covers and how to use them. All you need to know is to choose the correct icon or image for your highlight cover.
How to Make/Add a Highlight on Instagram
Before making any cover, you must first know how to add highlights on Instagram. There are two ways to create a new highlight.
First, you can easily add your Story to a highlight within 24 hours of posting. For this, open your Story on Instagram and select the “Highlight” option from below.
You can now create a new highlight with that Story by tapping the “Plus” icon. If, on the other hand, you want to add your Story to an already existing highlight, choose another highlight from the list.
Another option is to create a highlight from your Instagram Profile. On your Instagram profile, tap the “Plus” icon with a “New” label to add a new highlight.
Give your highlight a name and begin adding Stories of your choice. Instagram will now show you pre-designed highlight covers.
You can choose the cover from them if you’re okay with it. However, proceed to our next section if you want to customize your highlight.
You can publish your highlight for the time being, and we will show you how to edit and set up a custom cover easily.
Note: You can add up to 100 photo or video stories on a single Instagram highlight. However, there is no limit to the number of highlights you can add to your Profile.
How to Make Custom Highlight Cover for Instagram
Making a custom cover for Instagram highlights requires some external tools. You can also use the feature of your mobile phone to make a highlight cover.
However, for your convenience, we recommend using a good design platform. With such software, you will receive many free icons and styles for customization.
If you are uncomfortable with software or websites, you can easily download and edit the icons from your mobile phone.
Some websites that let you freely download icons are Freepik, Iconfinder, Unsplash, and so on. However, if you use them for commercial purposes, you must give proper attribution to the creator.
Just sign in to this website using your email address, and you can easily download any icon of your choice as your highlight cover.
However, you can also use graphic design software to make your Profile look more professional and manually customize the highlight cover.
To create the Instagram highlight cover, we recommend using software such as Canva, PickMonkey, Photoshop, Photopea, and others.
If you don’t know much about designing, you can easily use Canva or PickMonkey to make a customized cover.
For example, to make a highlight cover using Canva, first sign in using your email address. Now, enter “Instagram Story Highlight Cover” on the search bar and press Enter.
Note: You can use Canva on PC (Windows or Mac) and Smartphone. You can also download the application to use it on your Phone.
Now, you can use the free template available or create a new project to customize your highlight cover. After editing, download it or send it to your Smartphone.
You can use the same steps to create a cover in any other software. Also, if you are good at designing, Photoshop is a better option.
Anyway, after you customize your highlight cover, you need to add it to your Insta account. For this, you can follow our next section.
How to Add a Custom Highlight Cover on Instagram
After you customize the highlight cover on any software of your choice, you can add them to your Insta highlight.
You cannot use a computer or a laptop because Instagram web does not allow you to publish a story from a desktop web browser.
Hence, follow the steps below to add your custom cover on Insta highlight using a Smartphone.
1. Log in to your Instagram account using your Android or iOS (iPhone or iPad) device, then tap the Profile icon with a Plus sign in the top right corner.
You can also swipe left to add a new story on Instagram.
2. To use a custom cover on Instagram highlight, you must first Publish it as a story. Hence, tap the “Gallery” icon in the lower left corner and select the custom cover from your device.
Make your design take up the entire screen to get good coverage on your highlight. Zoom in and adjust the image to your liking.
Then, press “Your Stories” at the bottom to publish it as an Instagram Story.
3. After publishing, you can return to your Instagram homepage. Next, open your story by selecting it from the top right corner.
Now, tap the “Highlight” option from the bottom and select the highlight on which you want to add a custom cover.
If you don’t already have a highlight, create a new one. The process for creating an Instagram highlight is described above.
4. Once you add your new Story to the highlight, go to your Profile. Now, select the highlight on which you just added your new story.
Tap the “More” option in the lower right corner and then select “Edit Highlight.” On the next screen, select “Edit Cover” to add a custom cover.
Your new story will now appear as a pre-designed highlight cover on the lower side. Select it and tap “Done” in the upper right corner.
You can enlarge the image to make it the perfect cover for your highlight. Congratulations, you can now add a custom highlight cover to Instagram.
You can also change the name to match the cover to make your highlight more appealing. Once you’ve finished editing your cover, go to your Profile to see if it looks good.
Quick Tips on the Use of Instagram Highlight Covers
If you want your profile to look good to your followers, more than simply adding a custom cover image is needed.
Hence, you can use the following tips to make your Instagram highlight more aesthetic.
- Use one single style rather than jumbling things up. A consistent style on Instagram looks better, and your followers will find it easier to follow your highlights.
- On the cover, use a short and clear sentence. You don’t have much room for long sentences.
- Always arrange all your highlights orderly.
- Show your brand and style on Highlights.
In conclusion, consistent style is the key. You can make the cover black and white, colorful, or any other color combination. However, don’t mix things up because it will confuse your followers.
FAQs
Instagram highlight helps you to make your Instagram Profile more professional. Hence, adding custom highlights to your Profile can make it more stylish and organized. Followers prefer profiles that are simple to follow and are more likely to trust such brands.
To rearrange the highlights on Instagram, you must edit the highlight. Your highlights will be arranged in the order that you update them. For example, if you edit your “Product” highlight, it will appear first on the list after editing.
Final Thoughts
To make your Instagram Profile look more professional and aesthetic, adding a custom cover to your highlights is very important.
You can easily create a decent highlight cover using free software. There is no need for advanced knowledge to make your highlights cover beautiful.
Furthermore, adding a custom cover to Instagram is a simple process. So, we recommend you always include a custom cover on your highlight to make you and your brand more recognizable.
Overall, we hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you’re interested, you can also read our guide on adding multiple photos to Instagram Story.
