Instagram Highlights That Answer Customer Questions Before They Are Asked

A Story disappears after 24 hours. A Highlight is the same Story, kept under your bio for as long as you want it there. Most small businesses treat Highlights as a scrapbook: a cluster of circles called "Summer", "Events" and "Misc" that nobody opens. Used differently, the same row of circles becomes a self-serve help desk that answers the questions customers ask most, before anyone has to send a message. This guide shows a Canadian business how to plan those Highlights, make the Stories that go in them and keep them current.

Start with the questions you actually get

Do not guess what people want to know. For one week, write down every question that reaches you, wherever it comes from:

• Instagram DMs and comments, including the ones you answer with the same sentence every time.
• Phone calls, voicemails and questions at the counter or on the job site.
• Emails, your website contact form and the questions section of your Google Business Profile.

At the end of the week, group the list. A dog groomer in Saskatoon might find that almost everything falls into five piles: hours and parking, prices, how to book, what to bring, and what happens with nervous dogs. A bakery in Moncton might see custom cake orders, allergens, pickup times and whether it ships. Each pile is one Highlight.

The Highlights most Canadian businesses need

The names below are starting points. Use the words your customers use, and keep them short so they are not cut off under the circle.

A "Behind the scenes" or "Team" Highlight is pleasant but not urgent. Build the answer Highlights first, then add the personality ones once the row is doing its job. If you post in both languages, the bilingual posting guide covers how to split French and English without doubling your work.

Making a Highlight from scratch

1. Post the Story first. A Highlight can only hold Stories you have posted, either live right now or saved in your Story archive. If older Stories are not showing up when you try to add them, check that archiving is turned on in your Story settings. Instagram's help centre has the current path if the menu has moved.
2. Create the Highlight from your profile. Tap the option to add a new Highlight under your bio, select the Stories, give it a name and confirm.
3. Mind the order. Stories inside a Highlight play in the order they were originally posted, oldest first. If you want a sequence, such as "step one, step two, step three" for ordering a custom cake, post the Stories in that order on the same day.
4. Set the cover and name. You can choose a frame from one of the Stories or upload an image from your camera roll without posting it. A plain cover with an icon or one word in your brand colour reads better at thumbnail size than a photo.

The Highlights row shows the most recently updated Highlight first. If you want "How to Book" to sit at the left, add a new Story to it whenever you refresh the row.

Writing a Story that still works a year later

A Story made for Highlights is different from a Story made for today. It has to make sense to someone who finds it in March without having seen anything you posted in October. Follow these rules:

• One question per Story. Put the question at the top in large text, the answer underneath.
• Keep text away from the edges. The top of the screen is covered by your profile name and the progress bar, the bottom by the reply field. Keep everything important in the middle two-thirds.
• Avoid anything that dates it. No "this week", no "tomorrow", no countdown stickers, no weather. "Open until 6 on Saturdays" lasts; "open late this Saturday" does not.
• High contrast, big type. Many people watch Stories with the sound off, so the text has to carry the whole answer.
• Use the link sticker for the real answer. A Story can say "book here" and link to the booking page. Check that link every time you review the Highlight.

If you need more material, the Story ideas for restaurants and cafés post has formats that translate easily to other kinds of business.

Covers and names that read at a glance

The Highlights row is small. On most phones a visitor sees four or five circles and a word or two under each. That means:

• Names of one or two words: "Hours", "Prices", "Book", "Shipping", "FAQ", "Français". Longer names are truncated.
• Covers that match each other: the same background colour, the same icon style, no photos that turn to mush at that size.

Your bio, your Highlights and your pinned posts are the three things a new visitor sees without scrolling. They should agree with each other. If the bio says "Ottawa, by appointment", the Hours Highlight should not show walk-in hours. The bio guide for Canadian businesses covers the top of the profile; Highlights are the shelf directly under it.

Keeping Highlights current

A wrong Highlight is worse than no Highlight, because a customer trusts it and shows up at a closed door. Put a quarterly reminder in your calendar and run through this checklist:

1. Open every Highlight as a visitor would and tap through each Story.
2. Remove any Story with an old price, a discontinued product, a past event or a seasonal detail that no longer applies. You can remove a single Story from a Highlight without deleting the Highlight.
3. Tap every link sticker and confirm it still lands on the right page.
4. Add Stories for the new questions you have been answering in DMs since the last review.
5. Before the busy seasons that matter to your business, such as the holidays, tax time or patio season, add the temporary hours or policies as a new Story at the front of the relevant Highlight, and set a reminder to remove it afterwards.

A worked example

Imagine a tailoring shop in Winnipeg with one owner, open Tuesday to Saturday. Its week of noted questions produces six Highlights: Hours (storefront, parking behind the building, a note that the shop closes for Louis Riel Day), Prices (a card each for hems, waist adjustments, zippers and suit alterations, with "from" only where the lower price is common), How It Works (drop-off, fitting, pickup, in three Stories posted in that order), Weddings (how far ahead to book, what to bring to the first fitting), FAQ (rush requests, payment methods, whether you need an appointment) and Reviews, made only from customer Stories the shop was tagged in and has permission to reshare. Matching covers in the shop's navy, one word each, reviewed the first week of every quarter.

Where paid Story views fit

Some businesses choose to buy Instagram Story views for the day a new set of Stories goes live, for example when a reopening or new price list is being posted and the account is still small. Be clear about what that does and does not do. It adds views to the Stories you choose while they are live, so a launch day does not sit at a handful of views. It does not change what a customer sees when they open a Highlight later, and it does not replace clear answers or bring bookings on its own. The profile has to be public for an order to be delivered, we never ask for your password, payment is by card through a secure checkout in USD, and you can follow the order with its number at /order/. For the broader picture of how Stories, Reels and the feed fit together, see the Instagram services overview.

Highlights are a few hours of work once and a short review every quarter, in exchange for fewer repeated questions for as long as the account exists. Start with the five questions you are most tired of answering, and build from there.