In the old days, when we wanted to contact a stranger to talk about a topic, we’d write them a letter; An actual letter made of paper with ink and everything. Then we’d reread it, both ways. Then we’d put it in an envelope and used something called a stamp. And then we’d wait. You tell the young people and they won’t believe you.
So, if I want to talk about a particular topic with a stranger on Facebook who is a late 20s/early 30s research fellow specializing in that topic, what’s the best way to go about it? If we met in person, whether in a formal or informal setting, it’d be easy enough to know how to go about it but I’m not sure here.
I’ve had good and bad results contacting people out of the blue but I’d like to really put the odds in my favor for this individual.
you send them a friend request and see if they accept it. If they have no idea who you are and accept it anyway, you conclude they are are an idiot and immediately unfriend them. Or you could just send them a message. You know, just like a letter but without all of that paper and stamp business. Try to use good grammar and proper spelling.
There’s some weirdness now with what happens to private messages from people you don’t have a connection with, but Facebook has eased up on it in the past year and there is a much better chance that this person will receive it now.
I’d start by sending a Facebook chat message to them before sending a friend request. Introduce yourself and explain what you want to discuss. There’s no need to send a friend request; you’re not looking to be friends with them. Alternatively you can search for him on LinkedIn and message him there - more business like and less stalking.
Of course, you could still send them a letter if you have their address - or you could send an email, or a Facebook private message - but as mentioned above, there’s a chance they might not see the latter if you are not Facebook friends (for an example from my personal experience, some time ago I lost my wallet, and the person who found it looked me up on Facebook and sent me a message - it was relegated to some sort of “hidden” inbox, and I did not see it until several months later.)
Do you know how to use email? I’d use the same approach; basically write them a slightly less formal letter and then send it via either email or social media messenger.
Is this person an academic? If so, his or her work e-mail is most likely easy to find through a simple google search. I’d be much more responsive to a query about my area of expertise if it came via my professional email than via Facebook which would kinda creep me out.
I’ve gotten Facebook messages from strangers that I just delete, weirded out by the fact that they’ve hunted me down on a platform I use very informally to keep up with friends.
The exact same message emailed would get a read, and if appropriate, a response.
You can’t, anymore. If you are not already befriended on FaceBook, your letter will not be seen by the recipient. It will go into a gratyed-out link that says “other” under your message box, and a great majority of Facebook users have never clicked that link to reveal that they might have received a message from a stranger.
For the moment, Facebook has become de-rigeur, and it is nearly impossible to learn the e-mail address of a person you do not personally know. Even public figures, in their websites, now often have “Like me on FaceBook” as their only contact information.
I recently wanted to contact a journalist, and could find nothing but a Facebook page.
I’ll echo those above and say that email is your best bet, and if this is someone in academia their university email address should be pretty easy to find. If I even saw a Facebook message from a stranger (it would probably go into their weird “Other” folder) then I’d probably think it was creepy that they were trying to contact me that way and delete it.
If I ever used my mostly-dormant Facebook account, and had anything about myself in there, and a person with similar interests or legitimate queestions contacted me out of the blue, I’d read the message and evaluate its sincerity, and be happy to reply if the person appeared to be genuine.
Facebook is potentially a valuable way of reestablishing contact with former friends, acquaintances, colleagues, etc., but the chances of successfully making such a contact are effectivley closed off by the grayed out “other” messages.
With the old Yahoo profiles, I succeeded in reestablishing conatact with several old friends, with whom I now remain in contact, and i also established some important contacts with whom I shared interests,and met while traveling abroad. It’s amazing that a mere decade or two ago, people were so much less paranoid and terror-stricken by strangers than they are now.
Maybe I’m just showing my age,when I refuse to live my life barricaded behind walls of pathological social phobias.
I suppose it’s this old-fashioned optimism and willingness to think the best of others that explains your eagerness to accuse someone you do not know of having severe psychiatric problems based on nothing more than a brief remark about deleting unsolicited messages from strangers on Facebook.
That’s because journalists aren’t always particularly keen to get unsolicited messages from people. If they’re at any established media organisation they will have an email address, but they may not go around giving it out on the internet, if that makes sense.