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Want more likes? Check out Instagram’s 2017 trends, from puppy faces to travel

Hillary K. Grigonis
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With just a month left to claim to 2017, Instagram is sharing the top trends of the year, from the most-used filters to the most popular non-human accounts (which goes to the Pomeranian @jiffpom). The annual look back on Instagram’s 2017 trends can help users figure out what’s popular and why and perhaps drive a few additional likes to their photos.

The year’s most-used Instagram filters are actually identical to the list from 2016, with Clarendon in first followed by Gingham, Juno, Lark, and Moon. Instagram’s augmented reality face filters only launched in May, followed by a launch for live video in the fall — so the most-used face filters is all new data, but it suggests users should choose animal faces for the win. Instagrammers opted for the puppy the most, followed by the bunny, koala, genius, and love inside Instagram Stories.

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Speaking of pets, Instagram has a list of the pets with the most followers to go along with the human list. The list includes critters with a social media claim to fame like Doug the pug in spot three and Grumpy Cat in fifth. The list also includes jiffpom, nala_cat, Matutaro, Marnie the Dog, Tuna, Juniper&Fig, Lil Bub, and Loki.

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In case you would rather follow people, Instagram also shared the top 10 celebrities with the most followers, with Selena Gomez leading with more than 130 million followers. The list also includes Cristiano Ronaldo, Ariana Grande, Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Taylor Swift, Kylie Jenner, Dwayne Johnson, Justin Bieber, and Kendall Jenner. Ronaldo gained the most followers in 2017 with more than 30 million. The list of names seem to support a study from earlier this year that suggests females get more likes.

While the list of the most popular users and the users gaining the most followers have several similarities, only one of the top Instagrammers made the list for the most-viewed Stories, Kim Kardashian. The top five for Stories also includes LeLe Pons, Neymar Jr., Olga Buzova, and Amanda Cerny.

Beyonce’s maternity photo took the top like count for the year with more than 11 million likes — the fact that the image took the top title for 2017 isn’t surprising since in just seven hours the image become the most-liked Instagram photo yet. Ronaldo had both the most-liked video and the second most-liked photo.

Instagram also tracked the top hashtags for the year, with #love winning for 2017. The top tags also include #fashion, #photooftheday, #photography, #art, #beautiful, #travel, #happy, #nature and #picoftheday. A handful of those are also among the list of tags that saw the biggest increase in use, including #photography and #travel — or combining the two together for #travelphotography. The list of hashtags with the biggest increase in use from 2016 also includes #memes, #summer2017, #naturephotography, #meme, #fitnessmotivation, #bts and #photographer.

With travel photography growing in popularity on the photo-focused platform, Instagram also rounded up a list of the most Instagrammed places. The list of cities includes New York, London, Moscow, Sau Paulo, Paris, Los Angeles; Saint Petersburg, Russia; Jakarta, Indonesia; Istanbul, Turkey; and Barcelona, Spain. Disney took four spots in the list of locations. The most-Instagrammed locations also include Times Square, Central Park, the Eiffel Tower, and the Louvre in Paris, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Las Vegas Strip.

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Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary K. Grigonis
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
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