What would be the best way for me to describe to my members the differences between "followers" and "friends", and what the effect and point would be for choosing one over the other, or choosing both?
Thanks!
Troy, that is effectively how it works, yes and as Mark says, the Follow is often used to get updates from VIPs who don't want to get spammed by all their fans, but still wants to reach their fans. Facebook already has the follow feature, look at how it is used there by VIPs on the platform.
Following a person is more like subscribing to the person's updates. Whenever you follow a user, you will be able to filter their updates on the dashboard under the "Following" filter.
Yes, it's almost something similar to following friends but at times, you don't want to be a friend of that person or perhaps you just want to filter their updates but don't want to be a friend of them?
Troy, think of it this way. Friends you add everyone you know or might be interested in knowing. However, sometimes the news feed gets full of stories you don't care about... so you start following the people who share the most relevant and interesting content. Basically you are bookmarking individuals news feeds.... so that you can toggle between seeing everyone you know's actions and only the stuff you care about. For example, if a member shares very high quality content, you can choose to subscribe to them, allowing you to filter all the irrelevant stuff.
Yes, it's something similar like what you said. I think you need to think of it this way, imagine if Britney Spears registers an account on your site and she definitely do not want to be friends with other users because she solely use it to publish her promotion materials. However, in order for other users to still receive updates from her, they just need to "Follow" her