Can Commenting On Social Media Bring In New Fans Regularly?

I'm now coming back to the idea that I want to use my social media profiles to talk to people one on one in order to try to get fans. I've tried this some before, but still not sure if it's that effective or not.

A little background. I'm wanting to do this to promote my art. I have mostly been posting art and sharing it to a community on Google Plus, and because of that I can get people to add me to their circles here and there. However, I wonder if it might be more useful to work on commenting on stuff even tangentially related to art using my profile in order to get noticed by people.

I don't know how useful this approach might be. I feel like maybe for profiles that don't have many followers (mine currently has around 20), that maybe this would a good move to get a good core of fans. Maybe there's a certain point later on when you start getting new fans regualarly just by posting, and at that point, it becomes far more economical timewise to just keep sharing content.

Has anyone really spent alot of time just talking to others in related niches on social media, and if so have you noticed that it gets you new subscribers to your page? I'd like to know, as I'm beginning to spend time doing this.