9 Instagram Highlight Ideas for Your Functional Medicine Practice

Let’s say you enjoy using Instagram Stories, but dislike that all your effort is gone in 24 hours. This means you’re less likely to regularly publish Stories, which can affect your growth on Instagram, which is definitely not what you want. Thankfully, though, there’s a fix.

Using Instagram Story Highlights is an easy way to increase the longevity of your Instagram Stories, and it’s an easy feature to setup. These are nine ideas for Instagram Story highlights, along with some for individual Stories to save to each to keep you inspired. Stay tuned to after the ideas, because we’re covering how to set them up and how to create custom covers.

As always, include a medical advice disclaimer when discussing diagnosis or treatment!

Food

  • What you’re eating

  • Healing foods

Supplements

  • Your top picks

  • Comparing different brands of one supplement (e.g., DIM, probiotics, curcumin)

FAQs

  • Practice-related questions

  • Your background

Tests

  • Highlighting tests for different diagnoses

  • FAQs about blood vs saliva vs urine cortisol testing

Movement

  • Movement for different diagnoses

  • Choosing intense vs mild exercise

Sleep

  • Healthy sleep habits

  • Circadian rhythm and stress

Probiotics

  • Why and how to take them

  • Recommended strains

Patient Features

  • Video interview-style healing stories

  • Always share with permission

Science

  • Recent studies

  • Trending topics


How to Get Started with Instagram Story Highlights

On your profile page, you’ll see an icon with a plus sign below your bio. Tap this (you can only create highlights on mobile, not desktop) and select the Stories you want to include. Tap Done, and add a cover and name.

Keep the name short, because it will get cut off, especially if you have more than a few highlights. Once you’re done, tap Add. You have your first Highlight!

 
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A note on order: Instagram automatically places the most recently updated Highlight first, so the order will vary as you update them.



What About the Custom Covers & How Can I Get Them?

The custom covers are an easy addition to your Highlights that improves your page’s cohesiveness without much time investment. You can choose solid colors, icons, or geometric designs. It’s up to you!

Canva is a free tool with an Instagram Story template and free icons, and is one of my top Instagram recommendations. Once they’re created, download them, Airdrop or text them to your phone, and add them while creating or editing your Highlights.

To add a custom cover (that is, one that wasn’t published as a Story), tap the photo icon and choose from your phone’s camera roll. You’ve likely noticed that some post Highlight covers to their Stories to promote the fact that they have new Highlights.

 
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While this isn’t a hard rule, I always recommend uploading them when creating the story. Then, if you do want to promote that they’ve been updated, you can share a video sharing about the topics and directing people to your profile page.

Users aren’t likely to tap through eight Highlight covers to see what comes after, so this reduces the friction to get users engaging with your content.


Including Instagram Story Highlights takes all that content you’re releasing and creates the longevity you want. By implementing them well, you can increase your thought-leadership within your area and niche. This update may seem minor, but it’s another tool that will help you grow your practice and help you reach your goals, whether they’re scaling, transitioning to a new focus, or starting an online arm of your practice.

We want to see what you create! Send us a DM on Instagram to show off: @kirntraining.

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