This brings me back. The first website I ever built was exactly this, when Google+ first came out. I posted it on HN and got 10,000 users in just one day. Good times.
Look at the Federated timeline, and find people you like there. If there's a bunch from one instance, consider moving to that instance, and then you can read a local timeline of like-minded people. mastodon.social is sort of the newbie instance, and its local timeline is noisy and unfocused.
Join three instances and check out their local and federated timelines. They're all different in size and character and your hit/miss rate goes way up by putting in a bit of "pavement pounding".