7 Instagram Highlight Ideas To Promote Your Business

I want you to picture two stores for me real quick.

Store A has a gorgeous window display.

They’ve organized their merchandise in a way that’s SUPER aesthetically pleasing.

They’ve got an adorable little sign out front with nice handwriting about their new products.

And you can see lots of people inside browsing. 👀

And then…you’ve got store B.

Store B has no cute sign or display. You can kind of guess what they sell from the name, but it’s vague. And you can’t see a single person inside.

Which one are you going in? 

Store A, obviously. They made a stronger first impression before you even opened the door.

Now, let’s apply that to your DIGITAL storefront – aka your Instagram profile. 

There’s a core piece of your Instagram profile that you’re probably neglecting, and you don’t even realize it…

I’m talking about your Instagram Highlights. 

Your Instagram Highlights are what turn your profile from an empty, crusty-dusty-looking store into the cutest boutique on the block that has people LINING up to visit. 

In this post, I’m going to give you the exact highlights I recommend to make a killer first impression, have new viewers hit the follow button, and nurture those new followers into future clients. 💃

Are you ready?

Let’s goooo!

What are Instagram Highlights?

You know those little circle icons directly under your Instagram profile, right above your feed?

Those small bubbles are your Instagram Highlights!

They’re sometimes also referred to as Featured Stories.

It works like this:

After publishing a regular Instagram Story, you can then choose to pin it to one of your highlights. While normal Instagram Stories die after 24 hours (RIP 👻), highlights allow you to bring them back to life and give them a permanent place on your profile.

So if your profile could use a tune-up, your Highlights are a great first place to start – they can do a lot of heavy lifting for you and it only takes a few taps to set them up. 

(Get my full Instagram profile optimization checklist here ✅ )

Why are Highlights So Important for Your Business? 

Instagram Highlights help you create a bingeable Instagram profile experience.

Lemme explain. 👇🏼

In Magic Marketing Machine, I teach my growth, nurture, and sales strategy.

1. Growth content for eyeballs. 
2. Nurture content to warm up your new audience.
3. And sales content to turn them into paying clients.

(Click for a fuller breakdown of these 3 types of content)

When you’re in what I like to call a 🌱 growth spurt 🌱 (aka a 2-week sprint I get my students to do where we go ALL IN with growth content), you’re going to be attracting a ton of new eyes to your profile. 

And for the people who land on your page and think, “Woah – I like the sound of this girl!” – we want to give them a place to go even DEEPER.

That’s where Instagram highlights come in. 

8 Instagram Highlight Ideas For Small Businesses & Online Service Providers

By curating a strategic set of Instagram Highlights, your profile is able to work harder to nurture and convert your new followers.

So instead of pulling up to an empty, uninviting storefront, new viewers get a proper welcome…which makes them want to stick around. 🤗

Here are 8 I recommend for small businesses and service pros. 

Pin this to your Marketing Board 👇🏼

Instagram Highlight Idea #1: Start Here

‘Start Here’ is a great first Highlight to have on your profile.

Think of it like your business’s elevator pitch. If you met someone at a networking event, what would you want to tell them about what you do?

This can be a face-to-camera story, some Canva slides you design, or just a series of photos with text overlaid on them.

Chat about who you are, who you help, and HOW you help them. The goal is to give a new follower some more context on you and your business. You want to make them feel like they already know (and love!) you.

Remember that you can give them some details on who you are as a HUMAN too – not just your product or service. People buy from people. 🧡

Instagram Highlight Idea #2: Offer Highlight

Think of this like a mini sales page for your offer, but directly on your Instagram profile.

If you’re a coach or course creator: this is a great place to walk them through what happens in your course or program. Talk about the transformation, the curriculum, and how you’ll support them to get from point A to B. Canva slides or pictures with text overlays work here, too!

If you’re a creative service provider: you can use this space to talk about what it’s like to work with you – whether it’s on a monthly or project basis. What deliverables are included? What’s different about your approach? Discuss your process and what the engagement actually looks like.

Your Offer Highlight is THE place where a curious follower goes to get more deets and decide if you’re the one for them.

Feel free to sprinkle in some client results as well, which brings me to…

Instagram Highlight Idea #3: Client Wins

This is probably my all-time favourite highlight on my own profile – it looks like a tiny ant trail because we’ve got soooo many amazing wins from students in Magic Marketing Machine! 😍

(If you’re ever having a hard day in business, go tap through your #ClientWins highlight just to remind yourself of how many people you’ve helped!)

This might be one of the most powerful IG highlights of the bunch, thanks to a little psychological phenomenon called social proof.

Basically, when we see other people using something, our brains automatically decide it must be worth it.

Going back to our store analogy, this is the people browsing in store A that drew you to it over store B. We’re wired to trust something more when someone ELSE has already vetted it.

So if you’ve got some client love, here’s the spot to show it OFF. 💃

Screenshots are my personal favourite since they’re easy to post AND they feel a little more authentic than polished graphics (they’re literally what people are saying about you verbatim).

But if you have client testimonial graphics you’ve designed, or more in-depth case studies, these work well here too! Even better if your clients or students tag you in something or give you a shout-out – then you’ll definitely want to reshare it to your stories and then save it to this highlight for later. 

Instagram Highlight Idea #4: Freebies

This highlight gets your freebie in front of new followers without you having to post about it every single day.

So many entrepreneurs work so hard creating a lead magnet, only to have it sit on their website and never really gain traction.

This way, when new followers land on your profile, you’ve got a quick way to get them on your email list – even if they don’t end up clicking through to your website.

Pssst. One of the best ways to do this with as little friction as possible is with ManyChat.

Your new follower can simply reply back to your IG Story Highlight with a keyword, and ManyChat handles the rest (collecting their details, delivering them your lead magnet, etc.). They never even have to leave the app, and fewer steps for them means a higher chance that they actually opt in.

(I’ve got an entire free ManyChat guide that walks you through setting this up, btw!)

Instagram Highlight Idea #5: Podcast or Blog Highlight

Long-form content can be wildly effective, but GETTING people to your blog, YouTube channel, or podcast can be tricky.

This is a low-effort way to get more eyeballs on the other types of content you’ve worked so hard on.

Say you post an Instagram Story every time a new blog gets published or a podcast gets uploaded. You could save all those stories to this Highlight so someone gets a quick snapshot of your most recent posts.

OR you could do something more curated and round up your top 10 most popular posts, or 10 strategic ones you’d want a brand new follower to see first. 

Your best stuff stops getting buried and works WAY harder to help you nurture your new followers into potential leads and clients. 👀

Instagram Highlight Idea #6: BTS (Behind-The-Scenes)

People LOVE a peek behind the curtain! So use that nosiness to your advantage.

If you’re going to an industry conference, take your followers along and show them your day. 

If you’re a product-based business and you got an exciting new batch of items, do a little show and tell on your Stories and save them to this Highlight.

If you’re a coach, set up your camera to record yourself as you do your coaching sessions. Pull a quick clip from the footage, speed it up, and post it to your Stories with some text overlays discussing what themes kept popping up in your client calls that day. (This would also make a GREAT b-roll reel, BTW!!)

When you save things like this to your BTS Highlight, your followers will feel like they’re getting a backstage pass to the inner workings of your business!

Instagram Highlight Idea #7: Just For Fun 

Not every Highlight needs to be insanely strategic. Let this be your permission slip to have one that’s just for fun!

Fill it with fun travel adventures, random moments in business, your hobbies, your dog – whatever floats your boat.

Think of this as a place for people to learn a little bit more about the human behind the business, quirks and all! Because the more you bring YOU into your Instagram profile, the more you’ll attract your kind of people.

And alsoooo – who ever signed clients from being boring online? People want to work with people who are FUN to be around! 

Frequently Asked Questions About Instagram Highlights

Here are some questions I get all the time about how to use Instagram Highlights!

1. How do I add content to my Instagram Highlights section? 

Adding content to your Instagram super-duper simple. 

If you have already created the Highlight, simply hover your thumb over the bubble, and a menu will appear. Click “Edit Highlight” And your Story Archive will pop up. Your Story Archive is all of the Stories you’ve posted, organized in chronological order. Simply select the Stories you want to add to the Highlight, click “Done”, and they will be added. Boom! 💥

If you’re creating a new Instagram Highlight from scratch, click on the “New” bubble with the plus icon. It’s right below the “Edit Profile” button. From there, you’ll select the Stories that you want for this particular Highlight. Next, it will ask you to name your Highlight and set a cover. 

2. Do I need Instagram Highlight covers for this strategy to be effective? 

In my humble opinion…no. I’m always going to be the first to tell you that you absolutely do not need to make something aesthetic in order for it to be effective.

I feel the same way about Reel covers. To me, they’re just another thing entrepreneurs waste time on – they spend their precious energy trying to perfect the cover, fiddling with it in Canva, and worrying about how it will affect their grid. That’s all time they could have used to make another piece of content instead!

If designing a cute branded Instagram Highlight cover sounds fun, go for it! It might also be worth it if your brand is particularly known for aesthetics – like a graphic/web designer or an interior designer.

But for most people – just skip it. ESPECIALLY if it’s just another thing standing between you and actually setting up your Highlights.

(Pssst. Wanna hear about my student Rachael who actually DITCHED Instagram Reel covers & her obsession with an ‘aesthetic’ Instagram profile…and ended up doubling her client load? Click here to read more about her story and her review of Magic Marketing Machine). 

3. Did Instagram Highlights get moved?

In 2025, Instagram experimented with moving Highlights to a different location – on the grid. However, as of September 2026, it seems as if they are no longer experimenting with this placement change, and Highlights are back in their original location directly under your bio.

4. Are Instagram Highlights still worth it?

Yes, absolutely. The point of Highlights isn’t to rack up views or go viral, but, as I said before, it’s to create a bingeable experience on your profile.

They’re the perfect place for curious followers to learn more about you, see your client wins, get a behind-the-scenes look at your business, and dive deeper into some of your longer-form content or freebies. 

5. How many Highlights should you have on Instagram?

There’s no hard or fast rule for how many Highlights you should have on your Instagram profile.

This list of seven is a great place to start, but you don’t need to include all of them if you don’t want to!

Even just selecting 3-5 intentional IG Highlights will give your profile a nice boost. What you choose will come down to your goals.

For example, if your main focus is growing your podcast, be sure to include that Highlight. Or if you want to increase your subscriber count, add the freebie Highlight into the mix.

If you’re a new business owner, your Highlights section will definitely grow and expand as you build out your business with more content, offers, and freebies!

Optimize The Rest Of Your Instagram Profile – Including Your Bio 

Your Instagram Highlights are where people go once they land on your profile and start to peek around.

But your bio is what needs to hook them in the first 3 seconds.

When an ideal client lands on your page, an optimized bio makes them immediately go “oh, this is for me.”

So if your Instagram bio is currently just your name and title, you’re leaving some serious moolah on the table. 💸

Inside the 5-Minute Bio, I’ll walk you through my Business Owner’s Bio Formula in two micro video trainings, with prompts that tell you exactly what to plug in. I’ll also show you how to optimize it for SEO so your business shows up in search.

Within minutes, you’ll launch (and LOVE) your new bio.

Click here to optimize your IG bio and turn those looky-loos into LEADS.