Over the years I have loved using my Instagram account to find exotic locations and places I want to travel to, I love it when I find an account with incredible photos of places I could only dream of going with beautifully taken and edited photos, but I also love it when I come across accounts of real people and I make friends on Instagram too!
I like following people and accounts that I can really relate to, people who work full time and fit their travels in-between, people who tell a story of their life using Instagram along with the ups and downs of travel and life, people who work overseas in a job I could never get but can now follow along and partly experience.
These are the people that I want to be friends with, and I’ve actually become friends with quite a few people through Instagram in real life, and in this post I’m going to tell you, how to make friends on Instagram!
Give me a follow on Instagram too here!
How to Make Friends On Instagram
Related Post: 100+ Wanderlust Travel Quotes For Instagram and Your Travel Captions!
In the last few years, I’ve found that there’s a few people and accounts where I’ve started to feel like I know them yet I only know them from reading their blog and seeing photos on Instagram and I felt like it would be nice to actually meet up with these people with whom I have so much in common with and am generally interested in their lives.
In the early stages of the internet we were constantly warned about ‘Stranger Danger’ and not meeting up with people who you talk to online.
However, fast forward 10 years and there’s now a mass of app’s created solely for people to talk online and then to meet offline and it’s totally acceptable.
I’ve never been interested in using the internet to go on dates (urgh to Tinder) so why not use it to make some friends instead?
I guess you’re on this how to get friends on Instagram post because you want to make new friends on social media apps like Instagram. So here we go!
Tips For How To Make Friends on Instagram:
Have the purest intention of wanting to connect and create a friendship in mind.
Be interactive, follow what they do, give their photo a like and a comment.
Send them a private message to connect, something light and friendly.
Response to their stories.
Make sure you know you have something in common, whether that be travel or music or work.
Know whether you would realistically be able to meet up with them, if you live on other sides of the world it probably isn’t going to happen, sadly.
If you speak to someone online a lot and you live in close proximity or in the same place, suggest meeting up, going for a walk or for brunch or lunch.
To make it even more comfortable to meet, suggest meeting as a group and invite other people who you all speak.
Often on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram there are a few people who talk a lot within a community or as a group who are passionate about something in particular. Meeting as a group can be less daunting or worrying.
It’s easier to chat to other people when you have an established profile as I do, people talk back to me because they can see who I am on my profile, they can see what I do.
If your account is private, you have no photos of yourself and don’t show any of your interests you won’t get a response from other people as you could be anyone.
People’s lives are busy and some people may not be up for making actual friendships via the internet so if they decline or ignore you, don’t worry too much.
Often direct messages get lost or they don’t get shown to people unless you are friends so if you don’t get a reply, that might be why.
Above all, don’t be creepy, if you are a male trying to meet with a female, sending random or inappropriate messages you should not be doing this and she doesn’t owe you anything.
Personally, I’ve met many people and made friends from Instagram in London and when I’m travelling who are now good friends.
I’ve even hosted 3 meetups in London for people who love travelling and blogging, it was great to get everyone in a room together to chat and meet face to face!
I was able to arrange the meet-ups as groups and on an individual basis because I am a travel blogger and my Instagram account shows exactly who I am, what I look like, what I do, my personality and people can relate to that.
People often tell me when they meet me that I’m the exact same person I show online and that’s really nice to hear!
The conclusion is, if you follow people on Social media who live in the same area as you or you’re travelling through some of your followers home Country or City then why not reach out to them by sending a message and seeing if they want to meet up for a coffee or brunch or ice cream,
Or perhaps do a meet up with a few of you as you never know what friendships may blossom from it.
We’re all following each other as we have a passion and interest in the same thing whether it’s travel or photography or food or fashion or just blogging in general so you can make Instagram friends in real life.
The internet doesn’t just need to be for meeting guys or girls for dates, it can be used to make friends too! I hope this helps you work out how to make friends on Instagram.
Marc Gale
Saturday 3rd of March 2018
I must disagree with the friends that live on the other side of the world bit, as I have friends in the great USA and I'm from the UK. I talk to them everyday and maintain a healthy relationship. I hope to save enough money to go and visit them one day. Long distance shouldn't get in the way of a real friendship.
Lesley
Thursday 8th of June 2017
Nice one! It's always fun meeting like minded people & sharing stories, experiences & tips! On another note, I'm throwing this out there that I think Liv must have won the lottery to get to all of those places she's been!! ;-)
Monica Houghton
Tuesday 25th of April 2017
Loved meeting you at the WATG launch event! I feel like our paths will cross again soon given our mutual love for travel :) Great blog!
Sara
Monday 12th of September 2016
Thank you for including me with all of these cool bloggers, it was so great to meet you. I'm glad that you are choosing to stay in London as well as it's a pretty special place. Maybe NZ another time? Keep up the brunching and hopefully some new places would have popped up by the time I get back for us to visit. xx
Vanessa Rivers
Monday 5th of September 2016
Love this post Ellie! It was great meeting you at our We Are Travel Girls launch party! Hope to connect again soon! XO