Have you noticed that under your Instagram profile a space for your story highlights? Instagram is copying Snapchats Memories feature and going a step further, by letting you create a permanent home to show off your best stories. For the purposes of this post I am going to call this your "highlight reel" because it should be 3 or 4 of your best Instagram story slides. Images or videos that will help a potential customer or client really know the person behind the brand.
If you are not using stories, I'm here to say that you really need to start. This update reflects just how serious Instagram is about Stories. Though the company (which has gone months on end without significant app updates prior to Stories) has been spinning out new features for more than a year now, updates have barely touched profiles themselves. This is because a majority of the masses are posting well-curated images once a day. We as members were and are not posting nearly enough as Instagram wants, hence why stories came about.
Stories highlights could help to convert more people into followers by teasing the types of stories that your brand posts. According to Instagram, 200 million people view at least one brand’s profile page on any given day, but two-thirds of those people don’t follow the brand. Now the brand can use Stories Highlights to show them more of what they’re missing. Stories highlights mean that you need to step up your stories game. I'm not talking every post needs to be perfectly filtered but the ones that you think would benefit you by living on your highlight reel need to be your A game material.
For example, if you are a brick and mortar store or a venue that people could rent out to host an event make a top-notch video tour as a story and have it live on your highlight reel. Let people into your space show them something that you don't want to permanently live in your little squares. Another idea would be to create a story slide about an upcoming promotion or sale that you are having and allow that to live on your highlight reel. Highlights is a place where you can really showcase more of your stuff, where you can let video live and actually tell a story in your voice about your brand.
Keep in mind as well that hashtags are searchable in stories. While you should only use one or two hashtags on a story slide make sure that they are a good one.
If you want some personally tailored ideas on what to do with your highlight reel, holla atcha girl.