Using directories/articles submission you will expose your sites to more people and with building backlinks by commenting on other peoples blogs/sites you will gain more visitors and better rating (alexa,google etc..).
It will but depending on niche and content popularity you will get traffic.. For instance, I don't get much traffic from social sites at all, because my site is about environment, global warming, alternative energy.. It also depends on how acessible ans how much is easy to read articles. If ordinary people can understand your writings then you can get more traffic, if not , you can get less, only from those that are enough educated to understand basic terms written in articles..
Traffic exchanges are worth nothing, people from there just do it to earn a couple bucks, you have to build backlinks to your site, write articles comment on other blogs etc.
Are you looking for paid traffic or FREE traffic?
For paid traffic, you can use PPC, CPM, PPV, banner ads.
FREE traffic can be generated through many ways, for examples, through SEO, videos, articles, forums, link exchanges, etc.
If you have money but time, then you can outsource your tasks to virtual assistant(s) online.