Instagram has a LOT of settings on its settings page. For someone new to the platform or someone who is just trying to deep dive into their settings, Instagram can be a bit overwhelming.
Today, we hope to remedy that by breaking down each of the important elements in the settings portion of Instagram’s platform. Regardless of which platform you are using Instagram on, the essential steps should be quite similar and give you a better understanding and control over your social media account.
Let’s learn how to change your Follow and Invite Friends Settings on Instagram!
3 Steps to Access the Follow and Invite Friends Settings on Instagram
Instagram offers a few features when it comes to its Follow and Invite Settings. Essentially, this portion of the settings menu allows users to invite their friends to follow them without having to look up their individual profiles. Truthfully, these settings are a bit outdated, and few people use these settings anymore, but they can still be useful for sending “follow invites” to people through email or other mediums.
Below are the three steps to access your Follow and Invite Settings on Instagram.
Step 1: Open the App and Select Your Profile Icon
Open the Instagram app on your phone and tap on your profile icon, which is located at the bottom right of the screen. This profile icon will have your profile picture, which, for many people, is simply a photo of themselves.
Step 2: Tap the Menu Icon and Select Settings
Once you are on your profile page, tap on the menu icon, which is located at the top right of the screen. The menu is what’s known as a “hamburger menu” and is made of three horizontal lines stacked up on one another. From the menu that appears, select the Settings option.
Step 3: Select the Follow and Invite Friends Tab
In the Settings menu, scroll down and tap on the Follow and Invite Friends tab. For most people, this will be the very first settings page available on their phones. This tab will open the Follow and Invite Settings page, where you can manage your follow and invite settings on Instagram.
Breaking Down the Three Ways to Invite Friends on Instagram
Once you have access to the follow and invite settings on Instagram, there are three options available. These settings are:
- Invite friends by email: This option, as it states, allows you to create a link that can be sent via email to people. If that person has an Instagram, they will be able to click the link that you send and “follow” you on their own profile.
- Invite friends by SMS: This is identical to the email option, only it is done through SMS (text messaging). Clicking on this will create a link that can be sent to anyone in your contacts list on your text messaging app.
- Invite friends by…: This option is the most advanced of them all, as it allows you to select any app to send an invite link through. For many, email and text are enough, but this option allows you to send Instagram invites through other third-party apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and more. When you click this option, all of the apps that support this feature will appear and allow you to select the app you would like to send an invite through.
Check out this video for a detailed walkthrough tutorial:
Friends and Privacy Settings
For most people, inviting friends to follow them isn’t something that you normally do. Instead, you look them up in the Instagram search bar and then follow them once you find them. Still, there are other settings that could be confused with the Follow and Invite Friends settings, particularly account privacy settings. Here is a quick description of these privacy settings, which are unrelated to the Follow and Invite Friends settings.
Private Accounts
When an Instagram account is set to private, only approved followers can see the user’s posts and stories. This means that anyone who wants to follow the user must send a follow request, which the user can then approve or deny. This can be a useful option for users who want to keep their content private and only share it with a select group of people.
Restricted Accounts
Instagram users can also choose to restrict certain accounts, which means that the restricted account will only be able to see the user’s public posts and will not be able to comment or send them direct messages. This can be a useful tool for users who want to control their interactions on the platform and prevent certain accounts from engaging with them. Restricted accounts will still be able to see the user’s posts and interact with them, but their comments and messages will only be visible to the user and will not be shown to other followers.
Muted Accounts
Instagram users can mute accounts, which means that they will no longer receive notifications from that account, and their posts will not appear in the user’s feed. However, the muted account will still be able to see the user’s posts and interact with them.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©PixieMe/Shutterstock.com.
