Honestly, Instagram Highlights are kind of the "digital front porch" of your entire brand. People click your profile, they see your bio, and then—boom—there are those little circles. If those circles are empty or just a chaotic mess of random Friday night dinners, you're missing out on the easiest way to keep your content alive long after that 24-hour expiration date hits.
You've probably spent hours on a Story. You added the perfect music, used the "Add Yours" sticker, and maybe even color-matched your text to your outfit. Then, a day later, it's gone. Poof. To fix that, you need to know how to create a highlight on ig that actually serves a purpose. It isn't just about saving memories; it’s about curation. It’s about making sure that when someone finds you through a Reel or a stray hashtag, they can immediately see who you are without scrolling through a three-year-old grid.
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Most people think it’s just a "save" button. It’s not. It’s a filing system.
The Step-by-Step Reality of Building Your First Highlight
Let's get into the actual mechanics because, frankly, the interface changes every time Mark Zuckerberg has a restless night. To start, you usually need something currently live in your Stories. If you have an active Story, just open it up. Look at the bottom right corner. You'll see a little heart icon inside a circle that says "Highlight." Tap it.
Now, if you haven't done this before, Instagram will ask you to create a "New" highlight. You type in a name. Pro tip: keep it short. Anything longer than about 10 characters gets cut off with an ellipsis, which looks messy. "Travel" is better than "My Amazing Trip to Italy 2024." Once you hit add, that Story is pinned to your profile until the end of time—or until you decide it's embarrassing and delete it.
But what if the Story is already gone?
This is where the Archive comes in. Tap your profile picture, hit the three lines (the hamburger menu) in the top right, and find "Archive." Make sure the dropdown at the top says "Stories Archive." You can scroll back through years of your life here. Tap any old photo, hit the Highlight button, and you can either add it to an existing circle or start a fresh one. It’s basically a time machine for your content.
Why Your Highlights Probably Look Like a Mess
We need to talk about the "dumping" problem.
I see so many profiles where the first highlight has 400 tiny dashes at the top. You know what I mean. The dashes are so small they look like a solid line. Nobody is watching 400 slides of your cat. Seriously.
When you figure out how to create a highlight on ig, you have to think like an editor. A good highlight should have a narrative arc or a clear utility. If you’re a business, you want one for "Reviews," one for "Pricing," and maybe one for "Behind the Scenes." If you’re a creator, maybe it’s "OOTD" or "Travel Tips."
The goal is to keep them lean. If a highlight gets too long, the viewer gets bored and swipes away. Aim for 10 to 20 high-quality slides. If you have more than that, it’s time to split them up. Instead of one giant "Food" highlight, try "Recipes" and "Restaurant Reviews." It makes it way easier for someone to find what they actually care about.
Mastering the Cover Image Without Being a Designer
Nothing screams "I don't know what I'm doing" like a Highlight cover that is just a zoomed-in, blurry photo of someone's elbow.
You can actually change the cover without even posting the image to your Story. Here is the trick. Long-press on a highlight that’s already on your profile. Tap "Edit Highlight." Then, at the very top, tap "Edit Cover."
You'll see a little gallery icon. If you tap that, you can pick any photo from your phone’s camera roll. You don't have to subject your followers to a random graphic just so you can use it as a cover. Use Canva. Use Adobe Express. Or just use a high-res photo with a lot of negative space. Icons are trendy, but honestly, a clean, aesthetic photo often feels more "human" and less like a corporate landing page.
The Strategy Nobody Tells You: The "Ghost" Highlight Method
Sometimes you want to add something to a highlight but you don't want everyone to see it on your active Stories right now. Maybe it’s an old testimonial or a specific FAQ slide.
Historically, people would "ninja" this. They’d block everyone from seeing their Stories in settings, post the slides, add them to the highlight, and then unblock everyone. It’s tedious. It’s annoying. And honestly, it’s a bit buggy.
A better way? Just use your Archive. If you posted it months ago, just go back and add it. If it’s brand new, you do have to post it to your Story for 24 hours. But here is the move: post it late at night when your engagement is lowest, or just let it exist. If it’s good enough for your permanent profile, it’s good enough for your 24-hour feed.
Technical Glitches and Why Your Highlights Disappear
Sometimes you do everything right and the circle just... vanishes. Or the thumbnail goes grey.
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This usually happens because of a few reasons:
- The Music License Expired: If you used a trending song that Instagram no longer has the rights to, sometimes the whole slide gets muted or glitches out.
- Connectivity Issues: If you're uploading 20 slides to a highlight at once on 3-bar LTE, half of them might fail.
- The Deletion Bug: If you delete the original Story from your Archive, it disappears from the Highlight too. The Highlight is just a view of the Archive. It’s not a separate file. Keep your Archive intact if you want your Highlights to live forever.
Making Your Highlights Search-Friendly
Believe it or not, Instagram is leaning hard into SEO. While the text inside your Stories isn't fully searchable in the traditional sense yet, the titles of your Highlights absolutely matter for the algorithm's understanding of your profile.
When you're naming these things, use keywords. If you’re a photographer in NYC, name a highlight "NYC Portraits" instead of just "Work." It helps the algorithm categorize your account. It tells the "Explore" page where to put you.
Also, use the "Link" sticker. If you have a highlight about a product, put a link in the Story. Since Highlights stay on your profile, that link becomes a permanent piece of your sales funnel. It’s free real estate.
Beyond the Basics: Advanced Curation
Once you’ve mastered how to create a highlight on ig, you need to think about the order.
The most recently updated highlight moves to the front of the line (next to the "New" button). This is both a blessing and a curse. If you want a specific highlight—like "Start Here" or "About Me"—to stay at the front, you have to occasionally add a new slide to it to "bump" it to the left.
It’s a bit of a manual chore, but it keeps your most important information front and center.
Why You Should Audit Your Highlights Monthly
Things change. Your style changes. That "Summer 2022" highlight is probably irrelevant now.
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Go through your profile once a month. Delete the ones that don't get views. Update the covers to match your current aesthetic. Instagram is a visual platform, and "visual debt"—the clutter of old, ugly content—can actually turn off new followers. They want to see who you are now, not the version of you from three years ago who really liked the "Valencia" filter.
Actionable Next Steps to Level Up Your Profile
- Audit your current circles: Open your IG profile right now. If you have more than seven highlights, you probably have too many. Identify the two that have the least relevance to your life today and delete them.
- Update your "About" highlight: If you don't have one, create it. Use three slides: one of your face, one explaining what you do, and one telling people how to contact you or where to click your link in bio.
- Fix your covers: Stop using random Story frames. Go to a design app, create 5-7 simple, cohesive covers using your brand colors, and upload them using the "Edit Cover" gallery feature so you don't have to post them to your feed.
- Check your links: Tap through your highlights and make sure any Link stickers you used still go to active websites. Dead links are the fastest way to lose a potential customer's trust.
- Sync to Archive: Double-check your settings (Settings > Archiving and Downloading) to ensure "Save Story to Archive" is toggled ON. If this is off, you can't create highlights from old content, and once the 24 hours are up, that content is gone for good.