In case you haven’t heard, Instagram recently underwent a new feature: Instagram Stories Covers. These covers allow you to organize your Instagram Stories making for a cleaner and more user-friendly experience. I want to help you learn How to Make Instagram Stories Covers plus, I am giving you several templates to use below!
How to Make Instagram Stories Covers
First, you might be wondering exactly how Instagram Stories work and look. These are basically highlights from your Instagram Stories. You can select from your stories and add them to your main profile. This allows followers to keep up with your latest highlights. The best part is, you can organize those highlights and even organize by category. You can see how mine look below.
Now you’ll want to ensure your covers match the overall theme, look and feel of your Instagram profile and brand. The last thing you want is to give your profile inconsistency.
While there are many ways to make these covers, my favorite way is to use PicMonkey. I tend to use it for all of my blog graphics and while there is a free trial, I use the premium version so I have unlimited access to all of the fonts and graphics . That is how I will show you how to make your own Instagram Stories Covers.
- First, you will want to head to PicMonkey
- At the top hover over “Design” then “Blank Canvas”.
- On the left side of the menu, filter the canvas by using the drop down menu and click “Instagram” then click on the “Instagram Stories” template.
- You will then see the blank template on your screen. This is where you will design your cover.
- First, change your canvas color. You can change this to be any color you want to match your brand and Instagram profile.
- Once that is chosen, it’s time to add any icons or text as you wish. I chose to use icons that represented the different categories I planned to highlight. For example, I used a heart for my “family” category. Tip: If you want to use icons found on the web search the name of your icon then “silhouette png” after. For example, “home silhouette png” will pull up icons of homes. Be sure it is allowed to be used to avoid copyright infringement.
- Make sure your design fits into the middle of the template as you don’t have a ton of room to work with when it’s uploaded to Instagram.
- Save your template by clicking “export” then save as “sean” (for high resolution) and give your file a name.
- Repeat the above steps for the different covers you want to have.
- Once completed, you can easily email these covers to yourself then download them to your phone and then upload them to Instagram using your app.
How to Upload Them:
Go into your app and click on your profile image. Click on the image you want to highlight then click share to my story. To add more, go to your main feed and click on the camera icon at the top left and repeat the steps above.
Once all of your covers are uploaded, go back to your main profile and click on the + sign under your profile description and choose the photos you want to highlight. You can also name each highlight the category that corresponds with that image. Click add and you are done!
Free Blank Templates
As I mentioned, I made some free blank templates in a variety of colors. Feel free to download these and use them to create your own Instagram Stories Covers! Just click on the color you want below and save to your computer or phone. Enjoy!
PicMonkey offers a free trial and it’s worth noting that their premium features are worth every penny! I use it for all sorts of blog graphics and I definitely get my monies worth out of it! You can Sign-Up for PicMonkey Here.
And, if you are looking to make money online make sure you check out my post here.