How to implement a version of the power badge for your client

1. Pick 100 good users. Your choice / definition of what is good is up to you.

2. Who do those 100 people engage with the most. Maybe take 400 top most engaged with.

3. Take those 500 people and see who they engage with. Cut off at 1000-2000 total.

Since it's your client, you get to make the rules.

Alternatively implement eigentrust which is basically a more general form of what you've just described. You can even use the users currently followed accounts as the seed nodes which makes it even more personalized.