The social media platform that was introduced about a decade ago has now become so popular that it has become an aesthetic in itself. This has also made it a great place for you to market your brand. If you’re somebody that relies heavily on aesthetic value, it doesn’t get any better than Instagram for you. With just a little bit of planning, you can create a beautiful Instagram feed to market your brand. However, there is another aspect to your profile that has a major impact on how your brand comes across; the story highlights! While you may have already posted your story highlights, adding a highlight cover is often neglected. With just a little bit of effort, you could take your brand aesthetic to a whole new level by simply adding covers to your story highlights.
Adding an attractive cover to your highlights will also result in more people viewing them. Isn’t that why you put them up in the first place? We bring you some tips that will help you create amazing covers for your highlights in no time!
Your Cover Must Follow Your Brand Aesthetic
Your cover needs to follow the same aesthetic and color scheme as the rest of your feed. This is a very important point that if overlooked, will make your covers stand out and not in a good way! It’s like looking out into a patch of greenery and having a stray plastic bag catch your eye. Not very pleasing, is it?
Have a Colour Palette
It always helps to have a pre-decided set of colors to choose from. It prevents you from choosing a color based on a whim and will make your entire profile look much more cohesive and aesthetic. And if you’ve already followed a color palette for your feed, treat your highlights no different. If you plan on inserting text, make sure that your fonts also work cohesively.
The Cover Should Hint at the Contents
This is the primary function of your cover. It needs to give a summary of what the highlight contains. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to use text. You could use icons, images, colors, or even letters. So get creative with it! However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using text as long as you make it look good.
All Your Covers Need to Be in Sync
Apart from being in tune with the rest of the feed, your covers also need to be in sync with each other. It is usually easy to do this by keeping an element constant throughout your covers. This could be a color, a font, a particular feature of your icon, or pretty much anything of your choice.
Prioritize the Order
It always helps to sort and organize your story highlights keeping your viewer in mind. However, there is no set rule when it comes to categorizing your highlights and putting them in order. But it only makes sense that you would put up the content that matters the most. Generally, story highlights follow a chronological order and prioritises the most recent story. If you want to cover a wide range of topics, the story highlights would also make them more organized and accessible.
Now that you know the aspects that need to be considered before creating covers for your highlights let’s dive into understanding how to actually make them.
How to DIY Your Highlight Covers
There are many easy to use design software and applications that are available today. Depending on what you’re comfortable working with, you could decide on which software to use. Adobe has a variety of design software that can prove to be really helpful if you want to design your cover all by yourself. You could use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator as they are Adobe’s most popular software. If you’re new to design and are looking for an easy way out, you could use the various design apps that come with in-built templates and presets. Some apps that you could try out are Canva and Over. Once you have designed your covers and are happy with them, save them in a jpeg format before adding them to your profile.
After having uploaded your covers, you will immediately see how they enhance your page. There will be an increase in your following, your page will look more inviting and aesthetic to new users, and your hard work will start to pay off. Now you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Aida Martin is a creative person who has been writing blogs and articles about cybersecurity. She writes about the latest updates regarding office.com/setup and how it can improve the work experience of users. Her articles have been published in many popular e-magazines, blogs, and websites.
