Dwarf Fortress can never really reach the mass appeal of Minecraft. It's just by design such a more complex beast that you won't see all the same types of people in both.
Yeah, not at the state it's in. Really, DF is more like a hobby, which you study about, read about, discuss and then get in step by step. Minecraft is an already wildly popular game built around a concept people already love (legos, essentially) with a super simple interface. The same kinds of people just will not be interested. DF has got some publicity in articles before but Minecraft's core factors keep its own fan following going.
I disagree, the minecraft forums (Pre-massive popularity and 12 year old influx, when the forums actually were a fun place to be) used to be rampant with DF references and a sizable demographic knows about it/plays it regularly. I personally love both for similar and different reasons.
The best way to spread the word is to go to other forums and have games with it. I was introduced by a fellow on Gamefaqs who started a fort and named the dwarfs after people. Not knowing what was going on, I researched it, was repelled by the complexity, and then grabbed and dragged kicking and screaming into an obsession. I think having small community interactions to intrigue people can have a large impact on recruiting peasants/uninitiated