Okay. Nice that you are trying to give a short at suggestions for success on steemit with yourself still very new and trying to get a followership. You are right by the strategy of people commenting (meaningfully) on posts of others and they get a following. However, it's not same for upvoting.
I would suggest splitting 100 votes on new posts and 100 by the posts from your feed.
The above is not encouraged... I don't expect one to be looking beyond 20 upvotes per day (at most) recommended number is 10 as that's how your SP can get back to 100 the next day... The reason why some drop a upvote but it seems nothing reflects in the reward for the post is because they had been voting indisciminately and their voting power is low.
I don't also advice that you go on sharing your post indiscriminately on the comment section of others' post. If you have to, i believe it should be related to the topic being discussed there at least. The one that brought me here wasn't.
Lastly, endeavour to mix around. Get on discord or steemit.chat, make friends and that way, you can build a following. You might even end up meeting that whale that will give you the support you need.
Many should put at the back of their minds that you might not hit it immediately on steemit but as said if you are consistently dishing quality contents, you are a step away from being discovered.
its their choice whether they upvote or not they are not bound by anything and the available information which I found should be shared : No two individual could waste their time