Instagram highlights are less than a year old, but they’ve already made a huge impact for businesses!
Whether you’re showcasing your products, sharing customer reviews, or promoting your marketing campaigns, Instagram highlights are incredibly versatile and can be used by businesses in countless verticals.
Want to see how the pros are doing it?
In the following post, we look at how 10 brands are using Instagram highlights for business:
#1: Showcase Your Products in Instagram Highlights Like @article
Ecommerce brands have a lot to gain from showcasing their products on Instagram — and thanks to Instagram highlights, they can now do it front-and-center on their profile!
Just check out how @article does it.
Article keeps all of their product-related stories in a single highlight reel, but you can also create separate highlights for seasonal collections, new arrivals, and more.
And don’t forget to include a “See More” link! Doing so makes it a lot easier for viewers to find and shop the products they find in your highlights.
You can use Instagram’s new shoppable stickers feature! Unlike the See More feature, you don’t need 10,000+ followers to use shoppable stickers. Meaning it’s great for businesses of all sizes!
#2: Share Your Reviews in Instagram Highlights Like @artifactuprising
Do your customers absolutely love your products? Perfect! Take those stellar customer reviews and place them in your Instagram highlights like @artifactuprising.
Your Instagram highlights live front-and-center on your profile, so they’re the perfect place to share some of your best reviews. That way, when a new visitor lands on your profile, they can quickly get a sense of how much your customers love you.
If you want to take this strategy a step further, you can also include a See More link that connects viewers with the products they’re reading about.
Artifact Uprising does this with all their recent reviews, making it a lot easier for viewers to shop their products.
#3: Categorize Your Content in Instagram Highlights Like @highsnobiety
If you’re a brand that regularly publishes content, like a magazine or blog, Instagram highlights are a great place to share content based on the topics that you write about.
Take @highsnobiety for example. The fashion and lifestyle magazine is continuously creating new highlight categories for the topics they write about.
Grouping your Instagram highlights into various categories or topics not only lets you showcase the breadth of content you create, but it also lets your audience quickly find the content that’s of specific interest to them.
If your content lives online, in the form of a blog or website, it also makes a lot of sense to include a link to help drive traffic off of Instagram and into your articles.
#4: Highlight Your Customers in Your Instagram Highlights Like @the.wing
Showcasing your customers is a great way to forge a deeper connection with your audience.
And a lot of businesses do this now — on Instagram Stories and regular posts. But if you want to take it a step further, take a queue from @the.wing and move your customer appreciation into your Instagram highlights.
Sharing your appreciation via Instagram highlights is not only a great way to give your customers a virtual shout out, but it also showcases your business in a friendly and authentic way.
People prefer to support businesses that make them feel good. And there’s really no better way to do this than by highlighting the people who make it all possible.
#5: Share Your Promotions in Instagram Highlights Like @kotn
Beyond simply showcasing your products in your Instagram highlights, you can also use them to drive interest in your promotions.
Check out how @kotn does it. The ethical clothing company recently used their Instagram highlights to promote their BOGO (“buy one, give one”) sale.
What really stands out about Kotn’s promotion is how they present it. Rather than a simple sale, it presented as an opportunity to support a good cause — and that clearly comes through from the copy and imagery they use.
All in all, Kotn’s BOGO highlight perfectly skirts the line between promoting their products and building awareness around the good they do.
#6: Promote Your Campaigns in Your Instagram Highlights Like @airstream_inc
Instagram marketing campaigns are an incredible way for businesses to increase their brand awareness, grow their social following, and drive more sales.
But a lot of businesses puzzle over how to promote their campaigns once they’re live.
Sounds familiar? Well, consider taking a page out of @airstream_inc‘s playbook and use Instagram highlights to drive consistent traffic to your campaigns.
Not only do Instagram highlights live front-and-center on your profile, but they also don’t disappear after 24 hours (like regular Instagram Stories). As such, you can use your highlights to promote and drive traffic to your campaign for as long as it’s active.
#7: Promote Your Partnerships Like @capbeautydaily with Instagram Highlights
Like your campaigns, Instagram highlights are a great place to promote your business partnerships, whether it’s brand collaboration, an influencer takeover, or anything else!
Check out how @capbeautydaily used Instagram highlights to promote their partnership with popular health blogger @alison__wu.
If you partner with a ton of businesses and influencers, you should consider creating a unified highlight to showcase all of them. Or you can share one-off highlights like CAP Beauty did with Alison Wu.
In any case, using highlights to promote your partnerships is like a gift that keeps on giving — it allows you to reap the benefits of your partnership for longer.
#8: Share Your Events in Instagram Highlights Like @drakegeneralstore
Sharing content from your events on Instagram is a great practice in general. It can help humanize your brand and it’s a great way to build FOMO for your future events… especially if you share them on your Instagram highlights like @drakegeneralstore.
It’s hard not to feel a twinge of jealousy while glancing through Drake General Store’s highlights. From a partnership party with Google to antique hunting with the Drake ground team, viewers are taken to a ton of cool venues and events.
If you’re a brand that regularly (or irregularly) shares events on your Instagram Stories, create an Instagram highlights category for them and keep all the action in one place!
#9: Take Viewers Behind the Scenes Likes @roveconcepts
If you’re an online business, making an effort to humanize your brand is really important if you want to build a strong community.
A great way to do this? By taking your followers behind the scenes like @roveconcepts.
As Elise Darma says, “People love to see the raw moments and the sneak peaks.” And Instagram happens to be one of the best places to do this!
Whether it’s taking your followers on set with you, showing the faces behind the brand, or something else, sharing your BTS (behind the scenes) moments on your Instagram highlights is a sure-fire way to build a more human brand that your followers can relate to.
#10: Answer Your Followers’ Questions in Instagram Highlights Like @packagefreeshop
If you notice that you’re getting the same questions from your followers over-and-over, you should consider creating Instagram highlights to answer those questions.
That’s how @packagefreeshop uses their highlights: to tackle some common questions that relate to their business.
Even if you don’t get many questions from your followers, you can still help people better understand how your business operates, or how your products or services work, by sharing some high-quality Instagram highlights that tackle those topics.
Since highlights are so versatile, there’s really an endless number of strategies you can take, including highlighting product reviews, testimonials, tips, or whatever provides the most value to your followers.
To help you easily create your own Instagram Stories Highlights covers, we’re sharing free Instagram Stories Highlights icons that you can customize to fit your profile!
