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4 Ways to Use Instagram Highlights in Your Social Media Marketing Efforts | Social Media Today

In my opinion, Instagram Highlights are what catapulted Instagram ahead of Snapchat in terms of which platform social media marketers leaned towards more in the broader Stories battle. While Snapchat pioneered Stories, it never provided a way to immortalize the content that your brand had spent valuable time and effort producing. Enter Instagram Highlights, a way to keep (and organize) those stories right on your brand’s profile.

Sounds great already, right? But there’s one thing that can make your Instagram Highlights even better – knowing exactly how they can help you organize your Stories content for optimum engagement.

In this post, I’ve outlined four of my favorite ideas when it comes to how to use Highlights to drive traffic and optimize your content. Hopefully they’ll get you thinking about how you can make best use of the same in 2019.

1. Product collections

Any time your brand launches a new product, there’s no reason not to “Story it” to your followers.

Say, for example, that you run a nail polish company – you could share an Instagram Highlight for your holiday color collection. Post a Story of every new color for that season as they come out, then add each Story to your “2019 Holiday Collection” Highlight. Leave it up from October through February, then take the entire Highlight down and replace it with a highlight section for your Spring Collection instead.

Essie displayed its Halloween collection, along with spooky nail tutorials.

Leveraging the highlight feature helps keep your Instagram account’s content fresh, and in a very efficient way. Assuming you’re already be posting your new products to your brand’s Instagram Story, it’s just a few more clicks to immortalize that content past the 24-hour mark in the form of a Highlight reel.

2. FAQs

Do you have a dozen of the same question in your DMs or inbox every day? Setting up an Instagram Highlight dedicated to FAQs is an easy way to cut down on those queries, saving you valuable time. Plus, the Highlight will provide an easy place to refer any existing customers with the same question to, rather than typing out a long answer every time.

THINX has an option to swipe up for even more common questions and answers on their FAQs Highlight

Any time you catch onto repeat questions from your audience, just add the answer to your Instagram Story, then add it to the FAQ Highlight.

3. Your Favorite Reviews

Has a review on Yelp, or maybe an Instagram comment, ever made your little marketing heart skip a beat? You could create a Highlight exclusively for that type of review.

Whenever you find a great review anywhere, from your Facebook Page to an article that features your business, add a screenshot to your Story and highlight it on your “Reviews We Love” Highlight. This can help build your brand credibility in a much faster manner.

Quip, a dental hygiene company, posts reviews from both Instagram and Twitter mentions to their Reviews Highlight.

4. Intimate Looks

In the social media marketing world, we talk a lot about brand authenticity. One of the best ways to achieve that goal could b giving your consumers a behind the scenes look at your office, company culture, or even just your freelancing life.

For example, if the someone has the whole office cracking up, Instagram Story it, then add it to your “Behind the Scenes” highlight. Bonus points if you have one of your products in the shot.

Clothing brand Reformation gives its followers a behind the scenes look of their factory in LA its highlights

While giving that insight into your company culture sounds like an ideal way to increase brand authenticity, it doesn’t have to be that overt. You could even add something entertaining you saw on your walk to work, a low-key video of products for a giveaway arriving in UPS boxes, or a particularly on-brand Powerpoint slide in your monthly department meeting. As long as whatever you post here feels like a fun, inside look at your company, it can help provide more insight to your viewers.

These are just some of the ways in which you can use Instagram Stories highlights to help showcase and promote your brand. There are many others – hopefully these tips help get you thinking, and maximizing your Instagram Stories efforts.

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