Finding the right posts to reply to on X: what I learned after keyword search kept failing

Hi everyone 👋

For the past few days I've been building SmartReach, a part of xCinder, my workspace for people who run several X accounts. SmartReach looks for posts from people who need what you offer and helps you reply. It's still under heavy development and rough in places, so I'd like to share what I learned and hear how you handle the same problem.

What I learned while building it

1. Keyword search finds the wrong people. A search for "scheduler" returns jokes, ads and lists. What worked was describing the audience in plain words and building one search per kind of person, with a few "signal" words (asking, comparing, switching) instead of fixed phrases.

2. A wrong reply costs more than a missed one. Every post gets a 0-10 fit rating before anything is sent, and a second check reads the exact reply under the exact post. Most posts score low, and that's the point.

3. Speed and looking automated pull in opposite directions. Replying early helps, but fast, regular replies from one account look like a script. Waits are random, with hourly and daily caps.

4. People trust what they can see. The setup shows real posts and a sample reply before anything goes out, and says in a few words why a post was skipped. That mattered more than any setting.

5. The platform keeps changing, so I spend more time keeping searches and requests working than adding features.

What's in it today: a guided setup (one text box, then a preview), campaigns you can pause, an activity log, replies written with Grok through your own account or your own OpenAI key, and different tones. The interface is in English, Arabic and Japanese. There's a free plan for the workspace, and SmartReach is on the paid plans.

Where I'd love your input

- When a stranger replies about a product on X, what makes it welcome instead of spam?

- What should always stay manual (approving each reply, the first reply, anything with a link)?

- Would you trust automatic replies under your own name? What would you need to see first?

I'll answer every question in the comments. Thanks for reading! 🙏