hahaha yes that is a fact... helping them is important, but yes they aren't going ramp you at all... I agree about going up, I believe you can do that by finding followers from the authors of the posts you like. I have a strategy of "follow first" which means that I will follow first anyone of a person I respect. My feeling is that if Iike him/her, then his own followers might be like me. Surprisingly about 1 in 5 follow me back. It renders my personal feed useless, but I'll take that trade off every day.

Just an idea... always here to help my friend!