Followliker v9.2.4 is the best one out there at the moment I think... Versatile, can run in the background on a computer, has many features (people who abuse it tend to get banned) uses android interface, multiple licenses... Has tumblr, twitter, instagram, etc... Doesn't require much learning to get running, but if you don't care so much - it's easy to support your instagram habit, rather than run full automation and do the whole bullshit comment and follow/unfollow stuff...

I use it to like pictures in a certain hashtag range, and then I simply look at "pictures I've liked" and decide who to follow from that list and from my notifications, rather than having to trawl through millions of posts on instagram (which is a massive time waster).

I think most of the places such as instamacro, instagress etc... they use something similar, but with a web interface. For what you'd spend on a week using those services (with no control that seems to get you like/comment banned more often than not), you can buy a license for this software and it will run until the blackhat developer decides its time to stop. You can find it through google - I know many "popular" people who use it, or instamacro or instagress (which is how I found out about it).

Results depend on how you configure it but - the reason I like it is - it ultimately depends on how you interact with people and the quality of your photos.

It's like a tap on the shoulder to others to say, "hey, I'm here", by getting your account in their notifications, liking photos you would have liked, rather than some of the services which fool people into liking and following you because "magic".

Sure- I enjoy what the people who I follow post too (wouldn't follow them otherwise :P). I guess the difference is, is that I'm trying to keep a gallery to sell stuff. If I had as much money as Tracey Emin did and was back in the BYA days, I'd do what she did and rent a shop for my own gallery - as it is, I don't, so I use instagram, etc :)

I didn't know until lately - she never actually made the neons she displays and is famous for - someone else made them, she just told them what to do...

I'd be very surprised if instagram didn't know about these services. If they didn't want people to use them - given facebook's reputation for shutting shit down - stuff like this wouldn't work.