What you post determines your tribe
What you post determines who you attract. Tweets are like prompts to attract fascinating people towards you based on shared context, ideas, interests, taste, knowledge, and expertise - your "context overlap" determines your tribe.
If you do shitposting, people who are here for fun will join (I think most people love shitposting, because even founders sometimes follow me and my mutuals for memes lol). In my experience, shitposting is often authentic. There's a lot of space for improv replying and leads to fun interactions -> good connections. People like to have fun together. Everyone should do it. It's the backbone of Twitter.
Posting about Rust or AI (I love to see there are several students who post ML stuff and then they follow and hype each other) will attract a different cluster, while posting dating takes and jokes will draw in another group. Tweeting only for your tech/college/friend circle will limit your circle. Most people are fine with this (it's peaceful and fun)
Posting founder advice and self-help will attract that specific group ("sim-cluster") of people who are into hyping and motivational stuff. Be careful, though, as too much curation may lead to people losing interest in what you have to say.
If you want people to listen to what you say, do that. Write stuff, post memes, your IRL experiences, essay screenshots, commentaries etc.
Reiterating what I am trying to say: what you post almost creates a binding between you, your followers and the algorithm.
You're in control, but remember: there are always trade-offs. Shitpost exclusively, and people won't take your nerdy posts seriously. Focus solely on nerd-posting, and your shitposts will fall flat (because of the sim-cluster binding you create).
Another example: if you post only for your college circle, outsiders won't be able to relate as they don't share your context or inside jokes so your cluster won't grow beyond your college people (I am repeating this point)
Tweeting deep technical stuff attracts only those who minutely understand or are interested in it, provided the algorithm pushes it to them.
Relatability drives engagement. Telling people what they already know but can't put into words resonates powerfully. The caveat is that virality often attracts random simclusters - most of them are not the mutuals you want (like those who enjoy interacting with you). Viral tweets bring more followers, but most don't interact. Yet, increased visibility means a higher chance of your posts reaching new friends.
On the flip side, posting stuff that takes effort to understand will attract people who like that content but ignore others (and these folks often don't like funny takes!). You will almost always have low engagement till you hit some virality and gain followers from that simcluster. This is selective filtering at play. To an extent, you can adjust your following based on what you post. You can always keep changing.
My best mutuals are formed over my decent-performing authentic/slice of life/nerdy/shitpost posts that give us space to talk and do some improv in replies.
I think over time, you'll find your posting rhythm – a balance of styles that resonates with you. Most of us who aren't into building a brand or niche have a mix of sim-clusters and I also believe the algorithm is good at pushing tweets based on people's preferences. So if you shitpost, it will likely not reach your nerdpost simcluster people.
Just be mindful of what you want to post. Experiment. Ideally try to post what you feel like - do not give in too much to engagement. This way you can find your interests, your real voice and I think this is better for the longer term.
Trust the algorithm and just keep doing the bit. Be yourself and the right people shall follow.
Please upvote if you liked.
References:
Guide to the Bird App by me originally written in 2023.
post from Visa on balancing nerdposting and shitposting.
Henrik's brilliant post A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox