Yes, surely a good fan-base will boost your rep here a little and probably earn you a spotlight from the whales but unable to followup on your fan after introducing them, the reverse would probably be the case.

Like you said

Sure you might use your "I have this many followers here" card and that could get you some voting support for some time, but if our still small active userbase are not interested in your content or you as a person, your posts won't have much engagement going.