User relationship friends vs followers

1. What is the difference between a friend and a follower?
2. Is it better to have friends or followers on Facebook?
3. Are friends and followers the same on Twitter?
4. Why does someone's Facebook say follow instead of friend?

What is the difference between a friend and a follower?

If you accept their friend request, they automatically follow you and you follow them. Friends will also show up in your network on the community. Follower: does not need approval to see posts, but you don't follow them. Followers will not show up in your network on the community.

Is it better to have friends or followers on Facebook?

Facebook friends are for close connections, while followers allow posts to reach wider audiences. Users can select the friends, people, and pages to follow to curate their News Feed and consume content of interest on Facebook.

Are friends and followers the same on Twitter?

Friends - we refer to "friends" as the Twitter users that a specific user follows (e.g., following). Therefore, the GET friends/ids endpoint returns a collection of user IDs that the specified user follows. Followers - refers to the Twitter users that follow a specific user.

Why does someone's Facebook say follow instead of friend?

It's simply a follow that piggybacks on the friend request. You can tell this is the case because you can go to the profile of one of your friends and you can unfollow them.