Skip to main content

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

how to use Instagram Stories
Image used with permission by copyright holder
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.

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.

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.

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
Bluesky barrels toward 1 million new sign-ups in a day
Bluesky social media app logo.

Social media app Bluesky has picked nearly a million new users just a day after exiting its invitation-only beta and opening to everyone.

In a post on its main rival -- X (formerly Twitter) -- Bluesky shared a chart showing a sudden boost in usage on the app, which can now be downloaded for free for iPhone and Android devices.

Read more
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more