tutorial

How to create featured covers on Instagram

The highlight area in your Instagram biography is one way to keep a set of Stories online beyond the traditional 24 hours without having to repost it. However, leaving just the default story screen doesn't look good, especially if your goal is to become a digital influencer on Instagram. Therefore, we will show throughout the article how to create featured covers on Instagram.

In the next few paragraphs, you'll know what a featured Instagram cover page is, what it is for, and a step-by-step how to create amazing Instagram cover art!

Best of all, you won't need a robust image editor like Photoshop or any of its alternatives. Instead we will use Canva, one of the most suitable - and free! - online image editors.

Check it out below!

What are Instagram Highlights?

When you publish Stories and want them to be permanent, you can use the Highlights feature to keep them published even after 24 hours.

After this time, they will be available to every user who has visited your profile. However, keep in mind that after the 24 hour period they will not appear in the Stories bar of your Instagram followers' feed.

How you can use Instagram Highlights

You can use the highlight area of your profile in three ways:

1 - Extend a promotional period for more than 24 hours: Have you created a promotion and want it to last longer than 24 hours? You can use highlights for any promotions that last longer than standard Stories time.

2 - Using the countdown timer : The tool is also ideal for keeping a Stories countdown timer available throughout the counting period. This way, your follower will always know how long it takes for a promotion to end or for you to launch a new product. See to learn how to create countdown timer in Instagram Stories;

3 - Categorize your content : Highlights can be grouped according to the subject of the Stories you have placed in it. For example, if you are traveling and have published Stories, you can group them all into one spot, allowing other followers to see all the content about that trip directly from your profile.

Tip: If you haven't used highlights yet, check out our full walkthrough on how to enable highlights on Instagram Stories!

How to create featured covers on Instagram

1 - Access Canva and register on the platform for free;

2 - After you register and is in the home screen of Canva, click on the bar in the center of the screen and slide to the last option, Custom Dimensions ;

3 - Enter dimensions 1080 x 1920 px, ideal for learning how to create featured covers on Instagram. Click Create New Design to continue;

4 - From here, all design choices will be yours! You can use one of the free templates available and edit it in the Templates option or make it from scratch by clicking on the Backgrounds option;

5 - Then you can choose between placing Elements or Text, in the order you prefer - or just one of them, which we recommend. In our case, we will start with the elements;

6 - In this tab, you can put any free photos or elements of Canva, according to the type of Instagram post you are considering posting. For example, we will put only one photo in the model;

7 - Now let's go to the Texts tab;

8 - Choose the font you want to use in the examples shown in the menu on the left of the screen;

9 - Substitute the template text for what you want to put on the cover, but remember not to create long messages, as the icon on the profile is not too big and your follower may not be able to read;

10 - After you finish creating the cover, click on the download icon to choose the format and download your creation;

11 - Send your featured cover to your phone through your favorite cloud storage service.

Additional Tips: Canva also lets you upload images from your computer and use it as an element. Just click Uploads to upload them.

Additional Tips for Creating Spotlight Covers in Insta

Although we have placed a photo and text, we recommend that you do not use more than one element to make your cover. Because of its size, putting more than one piece of information will surely make your follower unable to understand what the cover is about.

You can use just one photo to make the highlight, or include a small element - such as an arrow or bookmark - and accompanying text at most. That way you will have learned how to create full featured covers on Instagram.

We will show how our result was with just the text in the highlights at the end of the article. See now how to post the featured cover on your Instagram