Earlier this month, Instagram released a new Stories feature: Highlights. In this video, I’m going to show you how businesses can leverage this new feature on Instagram to increase their web traffic and user engagement. Watch the video, or keep reading!

How to Strategically Use Instagram Story Highlights

So, we have Story Highlights. This is great, but how do we use them strategically in business?

Create Multiple Links in Your Instagram Profile

The first thing you can do is give yourself a few more links in your profile by creating highlights out of your Stories that contain links!

One downside here is that you have to actually HAVE the ability to put links in your Instagram Stories. This is limited to verified accounts and business profiles with at least 10,000 followers.

If you do have links in your stories, create Highlights of your Story segments that link out to important things like your latest blog post, your lead magnet or newsletter sign up, or another social media profile you want to send people to.

If you don’t have links in your Stories, you aren’t completely out of luck. If you have something you want to drive people to, just create a shortened link for it through a service like Bit.ly, and put it on the Story image or video with a text overlay.

One great example is from Instagrammer, The Snark Shop. The Snark Shop was offering some free smart phone wallpapers that she designed. She put the wallpapers, as well as instructions to screenshot them, in one Story Highlight.

Solicit Feedback from Your Audience

Another smart way for a business to use Instagram Story Highlights is to use them as an opportunity to gather intel.

You know those fun poll stickers you can put in your Stories now? Pin one of those to your Story Highlights, and rack up more responses!

Sometimes we use polls just for fun, or to add humor, but once in a while consider using them to get data that you can use in your business.

For example, you could ask your followers things like:

• Are you planning to purchase XYZ (product category) in the next 6-12 months? (Or a time frame that makes sense for your niche and industry)
• Are you currently doing XYZ? (Example: a few months ago I asked my audience if they were already using email marketing in their business, because I’m considering developing some products around getting started with email marketing and I wanted to get a feel for how many folks were already using email.)

Time-Sensitive Content

Do you have something that your audience needs to know RIGHT NOW? Maybe it’s a sale that is expiring, a giveaway that is ending, a grand opening or event with a specific date, or some other opportunity for them that is fleeting. Put it in your highlights to get more eyeballs on that message.

Only the Highlights

This means to share… uh… the highlights! Highlight means YOUR BEST content. Maybe you shared something that got people sending you a lot of direct messages. This happens to me whenever I show people what my office REALLY looks like! When you have a Story that really sings, consider pinning that to your profile as a Highlight.

One great example that I saw recently was from a photographer, Twigy Posts. Jana had taken some behind-the-scenes photos of a photo shoot she had done earlier in the week, and she collected all of those photos into a Highlight and pinned it on her profile.

I’ve shared four ways you can strategically leverage the new Instagram Story Highlights. What other ideas do you have?