Are you looking to make friends on Instagram?
Sending direct messages is the best way you can make friends on Instagram.
This is because it’s just one tap of a button.
In fact, you can even send a direct message to a private account.
That is if the person sets their message request settings to, “everyone”.
However, you should try not to send a direct message to anyone without context.
This is because it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get a reply if you’re just saying “hi”.
So how can you start a conversation with someone on Instagram then?
In this article, you’ll learn 5 surefire ways to make friends on Instagram.
By the end of this article, you should be able to apply these ways to make meaningful connections.
How to Make Friends on Instagram
To make friends on Instagram, you can either join follow for follow communities, reply to stories, or ask a question on your story.
You can also try interacting more with other people’s posts and follow mutuals.
- Join follow for follow communities
- Reply to stories
- Ask a question on your story
- Interact with others’ posts
- Follow mutuals
1. Join follow for follow communities
The first way to make friends on Instagram is to join follow for follow communities.
There are lots of them on the web as you can find them from Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and more.
But the best ones are typically from Reddit—r/Instagram, r/Followback, r/FollowForFollow.
Joining follow for follow communities is a great way to find people in your niche to follow.
Follow for follow communities are places where you can share your Instagram link with others.
As you do so, people will start following you on Instagram and you’ll have to follow them back.
In addition, you can follow others first and send them a direct message saying that you came from the respective community for a follow back.
That’s when you can start a conversation with them if you have the same interests.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can use follow for follow communities to make friends on Instagram:
- For this example, let’s use r/Followback.
- Sign up for a Reddit account and log in.
- Post your Instagram link to r/Followback.
- Follow others that are in the same niche as you on Instagram.
- Send them a direct message saying that you came from Reddit for a follow back.
Using this process, you can potentially gain 10 to 20 quality followers a day.
There are some people who made really great connections from these communities.
Moreover, your engagement rate will increase if you’re following people in your niche.
However, there are certain restrictions you’ll have to be aware of.
Don’t repetitively follow or direct message others as you may be action blocked by Instagram.
If you happened to be action blocked, you’ll typically have to wait for 24 hours for it to be lifted.
So, instead of following or direct messaging others repetitively, do so in intervals.
The best interval is to follow and direct message others are once every 10 minutes.
In other words, you should follow and direct message one person every 10 minutes.
This will prevent your account from getting action blocked by Instagram.
2. Reply to stories
Replying to stories is probably one of the most effective ways to start a conversation with someone on Instagram.
This is because stories serve as a context where you can craft a response based on what they posted.
Replying to someone’s story is a great way to start a conversation on Instagram.
Stories serve as context—which means that you don’t have to think much about your message.
You should try not to send a direct message to someone without context as you’re most likely not going to get a reply.
As Instagram stories are posted in the last 24 hours, any photo or video someone posted to their story is very recent.
Hence, there are more things that you can talk about.
In addition, you’re more likely to get a response by replying to someone’s story than sending them a direct message.
Sending a direct message to someone is much harder as just saying “hi” won’t make the cut.
Instagram stories make it easier to start a conversation with someone as you can simply respond to the photo or video that they posted.
Moreover, when someone asks a question in their story, you can answer it.
If someone asks a question on their story, they are inviting others to respond to it.
All in all, replying to someone’s story is a great way to start a conversation on Instagram.
So if you’re looking to make friends on Instagram, you can start by replying to someone’s story.
3. Ask a question on your story
Are you the type of person who dislikes sending the first message?
If you’re too lazy to respond to stories, you can post your own story.
That way, people can respond to it instead of you responding to theirs.
Asking a question in your story is a great way to get a ton of responses.
You’ll be surprised by the number of responses you’ll get by asking a question in your story.
A lot of conversations on Instagram begins with a story.
The general idea is that the more stories you post, the more likely someone will respond to them.
However, in order to get someone to reply to your story, it needs to intrigue them.
Your story needs to be intriguing enough for people to respond to it.
A simple way to do that is to ask a question in your story.
You can ask a question by adding a text to your story.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can do so:
- Tap on the camera icon on the top-left of Instagram’s home page.
- Tap on create (on the left sidebar).
- Type out your question.
- Add it to your story.
Asking a question in your story openly invites people to respond to it.
You’ll be surprised by the number of responses you’ll receive if you do so.
If you were to post a normal story, people will naturally tap right to go to the next one.
However, if there’s a question in a story, some people will stop and read the question.
If it manages to intrigue them, they will respond to it with an answer.
4. Interact with others’ posts
The fourth way is to interact with others’ posts.
You can do so by frequently liking or commenting on the posts of someone that you’re following.
When you like someone’s posts frequently, they might start to notice you.
But if you really want to grab someone’s attention, you can comment something positive on their posts.
Each time the person posts something, you can comment something nice on it.
If you do so, they are more likely to reply to you if you send them a message.
Consistently interacting with posts from the people that you’re following will benefit your account as well.
When you like someone’s post, you are no longer listed as a ghost follower.
As such, people are less likely to unfollow you.
Try your best to like and reply to every comment you receive.
In addition, whenever you receive a comment or a message, you should try your best to reply to all of them.
This shows that you care about your followers, and they will be more inclined to interact with your posts.
5. Follow mutuals
The final way to make friends on Instagram is to follow mutuals.
Mutuals are people that are followed by someone that you’re following.
If someone has a lot of mutuals, there’s a high chance that you might also know them.
Mutuals are people that are followed by one or more users that you’re following.
Following mutuals is a great way to increase your connections on Instagram as they are more likely to follow you back.
Following mutuals is a great way to increase your connections on Instagram.
This is because mutuals are more likely to follow you back as compared to someone with no mutuals.
Instagram has a feature where you can see how many mutual followers a user has.
You can see how many mutual followers someone has from the “Followed by” phrase under their bio.
For example, if a user is followed by 10 people that you’re following, you’ll see the phrase, “Followed by x and 10 others” under their bio.
That’s when you can tell that the person might know some of the people that you’re following.
Consequently, if you follow them, they have a high chance of following you back.
You can find people with a lot of mutuals by looking at the “Suggested for you” and the “Discover people” sections on Instagram.
To find the “Suggested for you” section, visit someone’s profile and tap on the down arrow icon.
On the other hand, the “Discover people” section is located on the menu in your profile.
Using these couple of sections, you can find many users with a lot of mutual followers.
Then, follow as many of those users as possible and some of them will follow you back.
Conclusion
In this article, you’ve learned 5 ways to make friends on Instagram.
To recap, here are some of the key takeaways:
- Join follow for follow communities.
- Respond to someone’s story.
- Post a story with a question.
Remember, try not to send a direct message to someone without context.
Instead, find opportunities to send a direct message as you’re more likely to get a reply that way.
Further Reading
> How to Grow a Private Account on Instagram: A Step-By-Step Guide
> Why Can’t I See My Following List on Instagram?
> What Does sdv Mean on Instagram?
Author: Lim How Wei is the founder of Followchain. Feel free to follow him on Instagram.
