These follow for follow dudes are not useful because they wont upvote your posts because they are following a few thousands. They dont recognize you.
Try to find people that are interested in your story not just at the follows.

I got some followers to which never write a comment or upvote, but there are a few which are very active and also very nice. Stay in contact with them and try to find some people upvoting and commenting. So you can grow!

I hope that helped ;D

Have a nice day!