Choose who to stay close to by who you genuinely like, not who seems important, because liking is what makes you actually reach out.
The idea
In business we pick people the way we pick stocks, by expected return, and we're dead wrong. Weeks later, how "important" someone is means nothing when you're staring at their name with no interest in writing to them. Your database fills up with people you never want to talk to, and you give up. When the list is people you like, the reminder makes you eager to reach out. And the people you authentically like and trust probably like and trust you back, which is the most important thing in business today.
How to do it
Create four groups in your CRM or contact list: People I love, People I like, People I know, People I don't really know (or don't care for).
Go name by name and trust your intuition.
Focus your outreach on the first group, and work on moving the second group into it.
This week, reach out to someone you really like but haven't spoken to in a while. Make it more about catching up personally than about work.
Example
In my coaching, real estate agents tagged their contacts by love, like, or don't know. The question was who do you love, or who loves you. It deliberately left out who might send business, because you can't really know that, and the people you love are the most likely to. The best agents drew over 60% of their annual income from people they love.
Watch out for
Don't overthink it or go down the rabbit hole of researching someone. Look at the name, react to the immediate feeling, and move on.