I was posting stuff elsewhere about how I play day 1 and wanted to try to explain it here.
So town has 3 "jobs" on the first day: don't get voted, vote mafia, cover power roles.
"don't get voted" - It's town's job to not do things that can be interpreted as having a mafia agenda, (1) it makes it easier for mafia to vote innocent towns and (2) it makes it harder for town to vote actual mafia.
"vote mafia" - Most games are less than 30% mafia members, so you can usually say that if town can lynch 1/3rd of a mafia member every day, town will win. With that in mind a person that has 30% mafia equity on day 1 is a good vote; if I, as town, can lynch someone that is mafia 30% of the time on day 1 I should be winning.
When a person does a thing or makes a post that could be interpreted as being mafia agenda-ed, their mafia equity increases for me, and since town is being careful not to make posts that could be interpreted this way (see "don't get voted"), mafia agendas get punished this way and mafia is forced to play town's game.
When I'm looking for who to vote on day 1 I ask myself, "would I bet $100 that this person is mafia for a chance to win $300?" If the answer is yes then I should vote this person and try to get them lynched. Even if I can't get them lynched, by voting them and pushing them I am establishing connections with them in the thread. If they flip mafia later, my town equity will increase significantly for pushing them on day 1, and since I have decided they have %30 or more mafia equity then it is a winning bet. My implied odds on winning town equity later are even better if I push more than 1 person like this!
Also if possible I should be voting in a way so that if I am wrong (%30 is usually wrong), I am enabling myself to find an even more equitable person, for example %40, on day 2.
"cover power roles" - Mafia keeps a list of all the townies and, whether mentally or literally, assigns power role equity to each of them. If a person becomes equitable enough, mafia is going to night kill them. As vanilla town you should provide power roles cover by doing things that increase your power role equity in the eyes of mafia (this doesn't mean fake claiming!).
More importantly, as a power role you should provide yourself cover by doing things that decrease your power role equity from mafia's pov. The easiest way to do this is to play normal.
that's my day 1!