How to make Instagram Stories Highlight Cover + free templates

Cover photo

MAGYARUL ITT olvasható a cikk.

Why Instagram Stories are need to be part of your strategy?

If you never heard about Instagram Stories our you just never tried it, it’s time to do it! Instagram Stories are one of the best ways to reach your audience and increase your engagement. Over 250M people using Instagram Stories every day, that’s more than SnapChat – it has a huge potential. Instagram is no longer just a selfie, cute dog or outfit photo sharing site, you can tell stories and be more interactive.

What are highlights for Instagram Stories?

Instagram Stories are for 24 hours, but you can save your best stories and share with your audience in the Highlight section, under your bio, here is mine:

Instagram Stories Icons

Check my Instagram Highlight Covers here.

You can buy my new Instagram Covers design in my brand new Etsy shop:

50 ready-to-use Instagram Higlight Covers with handwritten fonts

Instagram Story Highlight for photograhpers minimalist

Why are they grate? 

  • Your Highlight Stories are evergreen: It stays on your Instagram site and it shows your evergreen stories content.
  • You can show what you are doing (painting, cooking, visit museums) specifically, you can show deeper what is your niche.
  • You can use your own icons to be more unique.

Some great examples of Instagram Stories highlight icons:

Instagram Stories Highlight Icons

Aspyn Ovard’s Instagram Stories Highlight Icons:

Instagram Stories Highlight Icons

How Aspyn Osward using Instagram Stories Highlight Icons: 
    • Outfits: She is sharing outfit photos with affiliate links or sponsored posts
    • New Videos: Her latest videos from her YouTube channel
    • Presets: Her own presets for sale
  • New Blog: Latest blog posts from her blog
    
    

How to create your own Instagram Stories Highlight Icons:

First, you need to download icons and customize them as you wish. But where can you find Icons? There are many ways, I show you my favorite ones.

One of the most famous website is Iconfinder, you can download free or not free icons. My favorites are the LGBT Illustrations icon set and the Simple Icon set.

Icon Finder Icons

My favorites:

Iconfinder Icons

My Icons are from Later, if you like it, you can download from this link. It’s free and you just need to write your e-mail address and some info, and your Icons are arriving in your e-mail address:

Later Icons download

They are so cute:

Later Icons

Later Icons

How to customize your Instagram Stories Highlight Icons:

There are many ways how to customize your Instagram Stories Highlight Icons, I’m using Canva for the process. It’s free and easy, you can use the app or the desktop version. If you are using the app, you can select the “Your Story” template and customize easily your Highlight Icons. I’m using the desktop version.

1. Open Canva and go to the Create Design Icon:

Canva Create design

2. Select Use Costume Dimension on the top right and use 1080 x 1920 pixels:

Canva Templa Size

3. Upload your Icons from your Computer. Use the later Icons:

Icons Upload

4. Edit your background and use your Icons:

Background Color

5. Add your Icon and Voilá!

Canva edit

After you are ready with your first icon, just go to the “Copy this page” Icon on the right and just change your Icon. If you want a brand new background, go to the “Add a new page” section and start your design as I described above. You can also add only text, it looks also great, many bloggers using this style. After you are ready with your Instagram Stories Highlights covers, download them to your computer and transfer to your phone.

Add Your new icons as an Instagram Stories Highlight Icon:

The last step is uploading and using your new icons. Just upload your Icon as a story and clock into the “More” and select where would you like to use your Icon:

Instagram Stories Icon upload

If you already have some stories and you just want to add cover pictures, go to the Stories folder and follow this 4 steps:

Insta Stories Highlight Icons

 That’s it! I hope I could help you! If you want to read more post like this, follow me!

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Virag Horvath
Virag Horvath

Vienna based photographer, who loves fashion, interior styling, films and food!

Find me on: Instagram

15 Comments

  1. 2. July 2018 / 18:30

    I always wondered how people did this! Great post, thanks a lot!

  2. Geraline Batarra
    3. July 2018 / 2:49

    Wow! This is such a great tips I will definitely try to make this and I am sure that my Instagram stories will look better than the old one.

  3. 3. July 2018 / 5:05

    I need to pay more attention to instagram. Thanks for the idea I think I’ll try and do something.

  4. 3. July 2018 / 13:27

    I am seeing more and more of these and haven’t really used it on insta yet! I had no idea you had to make the icons! I use canvas for everything so this post is so helpful.

  5. 3. July 2018 / 14:13

    I have still not taken the leap onto instagram yet, but this is a great guide for when I do lol x

  6. 3. July 2018 / 14:20

    Such an awesome tutorial for the icons on instagram! I haven’t really explored the stories yet but I definitely should! Love the tutorial and I appreciate it very much, thanks!

  7. 3. July 2018 / 15:50

    Oh wow this is SO helpful! I have been meaning to do this so this is really going to be a huge help to me, I am saving for later!

  8. 3. July 2018 / 20:31

    This is such a helpful article! We are getting a few icons for ourselves ASAP !

  9. 4. July 2018 / 11:32

    This article is timely and so useful. Bookmarked it for future reference. I need to sort my Instagram stories out.

  10. Jennifer Prince
    4. July 2018 / 23:49

    I did this for mine, and I love the way it looks. They are so fun and make everything cohesive, too!

  11. 5. July 2018 / 8:44

    Okay. Wow! I have done stories, yep – so, I thought I knew this topic but your post really blowed my mind! I had no clue you can do your own icons and I actually have never saved the stories to make them last over 24 hours. This is a must try. Thank you for sharing, great and thorough post!

  12. kim
    5. July 2018 / 12:48

    This is super helpful!! I’ve been thinking about creating icons, so this couldn’t have come at a better time!

  13. 6. July 2018 / 6:02

    Wow, this is just what I need. I’m still really learning a lot about the new Instagram algorithms and design ideas for my page, so this post is very timely. Bookmarking!

  14. 7. July 2018 / 15:03

    thank you for the tips. i’ve been using instagram stories a lot lately and enjoy them so much. it’s a great way to engage with people without just posting.

  15. 13. March 2019 / 9:00

    Thanks for sharing this kind of useful information. Keep sharing like this.

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