@Tigerburn
Just as a different perspective, I used #Mastodon before I actively used #Twitter, and found Twitter pretty confusing and unintuitive when I finally started to actively use it.
I've also found far more interesting people and posts here than on Twitter, mainly bcos the search and the timelines don't try to funnel me into the hype cycle or towards the "most popular". As @ambihelical says, #hashtags - use 'em, a lot! In your profile, in an introductions post, and to search for people. Helps a lot.