Q&A highlight

Overview

A Q&A highlight (a saved collection of your best questions and answers) refers to a way of running your question box where you pick especially good ones from the questions and answers you've received and save or reshare them. Depending on the platform, there are methods such as gathering Q&As from Stories into Instagram's Highlights feature, collecting them in a blog post, or featuring them in a pinned post.

Why make Q&A highlights

A question box Q&A is seen on the timeline right when you post it, but as time passes it flows down and gets buried. Yet a good Q&A doesn't lose its value over time. People who have just followed you have few chances to see past Q&As, so gathering them as highlights keeps them available at any time.

Highlights work like a "greatest hits album" for your question box. If someone visiting your profile for the first time looks at your Q&A highlights and feels "this person's answers are fun," it can lead to a follow and a question.

How to organize highlights

As your Q&As grow in number, organizing them by category makes them easier to browse. You can sort them by theme, such as "Love Q&A," "Work Q&A," "Funny Q&A," and "Advice Q&A." Instagram Highlights let you set a cover image, so using a matching icon for each category improves the look of your profile.

The standard for choosing is "Is it fun even for someone reading it for the first time?" A Q&A built on an inside joke that makes no sense without context isn't a good fit for highlights. Give priority to Q&As on universal themes, answers with a surprising twist, and answers that include useful information.

Putting your Q&As to further use

As a step beyond Q&A highlights, one approach is to rework your question box Q&As into blog posts or longer content. When you receive several questions on the same theme, gathering them into an article as "frequently asked questions" can also bring in visitors from search engines.

The Q&As in a question box are a treasure trove of what your followers really want to know. If you look at which questions come in most often, you can see what your followers are interested in. If you create content that responds to those interests, you can offer value that goes beyond the question box. A question box is not just a communication tool but also a device that produces seeds for content.