Key Takeaways
- Highlights are the first thing a cold visitor checks after watching your Reel. Set them up before you need them.
- Instagram moved Highlights to a dedicated tab in 2025. The classic circle row below the bio is fading out on most accounts.
- Every personal brand needs exactly three Highlights to start: Who Am I, What I Do, and Results.
- The CCN framework explains why those three matter: your viewer is cold, new to you, and makes a decision in seconds.
- Each Highlight holds up to 100 stories. Once you hit the cap, start a second one in the same series.
- Instagram Plus (a paid subscription, rolling out on iOS in 2026) lets you add content to Highlights without it appearing in your followers’ Stories feed.
What Are Instagram Highlights?
Instagram Highlights are collections of Stories pinned permanently to your profile. Unlike a regular Story, which disappears after 24 hours, a Highlight stays until you delete it. That makes them the most durable, always-visible content on your entire profile.
Instagram launched Highlights in December 2017 as a way to let creators keep their best Stories visible beyond the 24-hour window. The intent was clear from the start: help creators express more of who they are to anyone who visits their profile.
That purpose has not changed. Most people just execute it badly.
How to Make Highlights on Instagram: Step by Step
To create a Highlight, go to your profile, tap the + icon near the Highlights area, choose Stories from your archive, give the Highlight a name, and tap Done. It appears on your profile immediately and stays there until you remove it. You can add, remove, or rename it at any time.
Here is the full process for each route.
From an active Story (fastest):
- While your Story is live, tap the Highlight button at the bottom. It is the heart icon.
- Choose an existing Highlight or tap New.
- Name it and tap Add.
From your archive:
- Go to your profile and tap the three-line menu in the top right corner.
- Tap Archive.
- Select the Stories you want to include.
- Tap the Highlight icon at the bottom.
- Add to an existing Highlight or create a new one.
From the Highlights tab (updated layout):
- Go to your profile and tap the Highlights tab. It is the heart icon in the tab row beneath your bio.
- Tap the + icon.
- Choose Stories from your archive.
- Name it and tap Done.
Pretty straightforward whichever route you take. Per the official Instagram help page, each Highlight holds up to 100 stories. When you hit that cap, create a second Highlight in the same series rather than deleting older content.
On covers: a square image at 1080 x 1080 pixels works best. Do not overthink this step. The name matters more than the design right now, and the next section explains why.
What Changed in 2025: Highlights Now Have Their Own Tab
If a guide shows Highlights as a row of circles directly below the bio, it is describing the old layout. That layout is gone on most accounts.
In January 2025, Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained the change in a post on Threads: “Highlights are a great way to showcase your favorite stories, but they are visually complicated and push your grid down. In order to maintain creator control we’re building a tool so you can re-order your entire grid and make it whatever you want.” He also noted that Highlights would move into a dedicated tab.
That tab is now live on most accounts. It shows up as a heart icon in the row beneath your bio. Highlights display there as vertical thumbnails. Visitors tap the tab to browse them, the same way they would browse your grid.
This changes two things for you.
First, Highlight names matter more than they used to. In the old circle layout, titles got cut off at roughly nine characters and were hard to read. In the tab view, full names display clearly next to each thumbnail. “Results” and “What I Do” communicate something real. “Life” and “Misc” do not.
Second, the cover design matters less. The tab view shows vertical thumbnails, not small circles. A clean, readable thumbnail beats a color-matched branded circle every time.
The August 2025 Meta features post covers the full wave of profile changes that came with this rollout.
What Should You Put in Your Instagram Highlights?
Every personal brand needs three Highlights to start: Who Am I, What I Do, and Results. These three give a cold visitor everything they need to decide whether to follow, in the right order. Generic Highlights like “Travel” or “Behind the Scenes” do not serve this purpose.
Here is each one and what belongs in it.
Highlight 1: Who Am I
This is your hero story. Where you started. What changed. Where you are now.
Not a brag. Context.
If you are a relationship coach, this is the moment that shaped what you now teach. If you are a fitness coach, this is your own journey with training and health. If you are a business coach, this is the gap you identified and closed.
Keep it to five to seven Stories. People tap through fast. You will lose them if it runs too long.
Highlight 2: What I Do
This is your method. Not your offer. Not your pricing. Your method.
What do you believe that most coaches in your niche do not? What is the specific thing you do differently?
If you are a nutrition coach who thinks obsessive macro tracking makes most people worse before it makes them better – that position goes here. If you are a parenting coach who believes common discipline advice increases kids’ anxiety instead of reducing it – that goes here. Whatever makes your approach distinct, this Highlight is where it lives.
Do not list services. Do not hint at pricing. Just teach the idea in Story form.
Highlight 3: Results
Client results. Screenshots of messages. Transformation evidence. Short video clips from people you have worked with.
Hold up. I barely have any clients yet. Can I really make a Results Highlight?
Yes. Completely.
A WhatsApp screenshot from someone you helped counts. An email counts. A 15-second video from a grateful client counts. You do not need a hundred pieces of proof. You need a few genuine ones.
The point is not volume. It is evidence that this works for real people other than you. One authentic result beats a blank Highlight every time.
You can see how these three Highlights fit into a complete profile setup – covering the bio and pinned posts as well – in the Instagram profile template guide.
The CCN Framework: Why These Three Highlights Specifically
CCN stands for Casual and New audience. It is the frame behind almost every good content and profile decision on Instagram.
Here is the core idea. Most of the people who watch your Reel have never heard of you. They are cold. The algorithm served your video to them and they liked it enough to tap through to your profile. Now they have a few seconds to decide: follow, or keep scrolling.
That is your CCN viewer. Casual. New to you. No context at all.
The problem with most coaches’ profiles is that they are built for people who already know them. Highlights called “Bali Trip” and “Summer 2024” mean something to an existing follower. They mean nothing to a stranger trying to figure out who you are.
But Max, doesn’t my current audience matter too?
Of course. But your existing followers already follow you. They do not need to be converted. The CCN viewer is the one who could become a new follower – and eventually a client. Your profile has to speak to that person first.
The three Highlights above do exactly this. Who Am I answers “who is this?” before the visitor has to ask it. What I Do answers “why should I care?” Results answers “does this actually work for real people?”
That sequence mirrors how trust is built with a stranger. Story first. Method second. Proof third.
Read that again.
A cold visitor needs those three things in that order. Hand them vacation photos instead and they are gone before you finish loading.
For more on how CCN shapes your entire content approach, the organic Instagram growth guide covers the same framework in the context of your posting strategy.
What Is the Credibility Bank, and How Do Highlights Fill It?
The credibility bank is everything on your profile that tells a stranger you are worth trusting – before they ever reach out to you. Your bio contributes to it. Your pinned posts contribute to it. But Highlights carry the most weight because they can hold vastly more than a bio or a pinned post ever could.
Think about what a visitor can learn from three well-built Highlights:
- Your backstory and why it matters (Who Am I)
- Your specific method and what makes it different (What I Do)
- Real evidence that people have gotten results from working with you (Results)
That is a complete credibility picture. Delivered in a few taps.
Now think about what happens when those Highlights are empty, or filled with random content. Your credibility bank is empty. The cold visitor has nothing to hold onto. They leave.
Here is what most coaches miss. You do not need a big following for your Highlights to do this job. A profile with 300 followers, a clear bio, and three strong Highlights will convert more curious visitors into followers than a profile with 8,000 followers and a disorganized Highlights section with no Results in sight.
The credibility bank is not about size. It is about clarity.
You can see how coaches have built this out in practice at Max Tornow’s coaching results page. And if you want to understand the next step – turning those follows into actual discovery calls – the Instagram Story views to discovery calls guide covers that transition in detail.
Should You Set Up Your Highlights Before You Go Viral?
Yes. Do it now, before any Reel gets traction. When a video goes viral, hundreds of new visitors hit your profile in a short window. If your Highlights are empty or disorganized when they arrive, most of them leave without following. You earned that traffic with a good video. Do not waste it on an unprepared profile.
I have seen this pattern too many times. A coach gets their first viral Reel, lands 1,500 profile visits in 24 hours, and has nothing set up in their Highlights. Most of those visitors bounce. That window does not come back.
The original Instagram Highlights announcement framed the feature this way: Highlights let you “express more of who you are” to people who visit your profile. That framing was built for exactly this scenario – new viewers, short attention spans, profile as a first impression.
You cannot build all three Highlights at full speed while a Reel is going viral. Build them now. Fill each with five to ten strong Stories. Let them sit there, ready.
The timing rule is simple: build your Highlights before you need them.
How Many Highlights Should You Have?
Start with three: Who Am I, What I Do, and Results. That is the minimum floor, not the ceiling. Once those three are solid and current, you can add more based on the questions your audience asks most often.
A FAQ Highlight is a strong fourth option if you get the same DM question over and over. A Free Resources section works well if you have lead magnets or valuable saved posts worth pointing people toward.
But do not build extra Highlights before the core three are complete. Eight niche-topic Highlights with no Results section is a disorganized credibility bank.
Each Highlight holds up to 100 stories. When you hit the cap, create a second one in the same series – “Results 2” for example – rather than deleting older content. The original stays visible.
Can You Post to Highlights Without Posting to Stories First?
Yes – with Instagram Plus. It is a paid monthly subscription (rolling out globally on iOS in 2026) that lets you post to your profile or Highlights without the content appearing in your followers’ Stories feed. That means you can keep your Highlights fresh without sending a notification to every follower every time you update them.
Instagram Plus was built partly for this use case: creators who want a current, well-stocked Highlights section without treating every update like a broadcast.
Instagram is also testing a flow where you can share content directly to Highlights without going through Stories at all. That feature is still in testing as of mid-2026 and is not widely available yet. Worth watching.
For creators who update their Highlights regularly, the Instagram Plus option solves a real friction point. You do not have to push everything through Stories just to keep your profile current.
Common Highlight Mistakes That Kill Your Profile
These show up constantly.
Calling a Highlight “Life.”
That tells a visitor nothing. Rename it to something purposeful. “Who Am I” is clear. “Life” is not.
Treating Highlights as a random archive.
Every Story that goes into a Highlight should earn its place there. Dumping all your old Stories in with no filter makes your profile feel cluttered and confusing. One clear purpose per Highlight.
Obsessing over cover design.
The new tab view displays Highlight names far more prominently than the old bubble circles ever did. A clean, readable thumbnail matters more than a color-matched branded cover. Spend your time on the content, not the aesthetic.
Waiting until you have enough proof for a Results Highlight.
You will always feel like you need more. Start with what you have. Two genuine WhatsApp screenshots are better than a blank Highlight, every time. I digress, but this one holds more coaches back than any other mistake on this list.
Never updating them.
Highlights are not a one-time setup. Check your Results Highlight every few months and add new proof. Update your Who Am I if your story has evolved. Keep the credibility bank current.
Putting It All Together
Here is the short version.
Set up three Highlights today: Who Am I, What I Do, Results. Fill each with five to ten Stories. Name them clearly. Do it before any Reel gets traction, not after.
Every time you think about who is reading these, think CCN. Not your existing followers – they already know you. Think about the cold visitor who just watched a Reel, tapped your profile, and has zero context about who you are. Your three Highlights are their first real look at whether you are worth following.
Your credibility bank fills one Story at a time. The people who are the right fit will recognize themselves in what they see. That is how a profile visitor becomes a follower. And a follower, eventually, becomes a client.
Want the templates behind content that actually gets watched? Grab the templates here and start with the first one today.