If the Person Is Not a Friend on Facebook, Can He Read My Message?
By Melly Parker
Connecting to business associates and customers over Facebook can be done with messages, comments and status posts. When you're not linked to the person you're contacting via page follows or friendship, you can't initiate some types of contact, such as comments or statuses. Messages, however, can be sent from your account to most other users on Facebook
Messages
In most cases, you can send a message to anyone on Facebook, whether or not you're friends. You have to send the messages from your personal account, since you can't write and send a message on Facebook directly from your business page to a person with whom you're not connected. When the person you've messaged signs in to his account, he'll receive a notification of your message. Some users also receive email or mobile notifications of messages.
Privacy Settings
Facebook users have the option to block messages from unknown senders. If you navigate to a person's Timeline and there is no option to send a message, then the user has blocked the feature. You may be able to add the person as a friend and then send her a message, though, if she accepts your friendship request.
Blocking
If a Facebook user has blocked you, then you won't be able to send him a message. Blocking means that you can't interact with that person at all -- you can't even see the public view of his Timeline when you're logged in from the account he's blocked. You shouldn't attempt to contact users who've blocked you. It may lead to bad publicity for your business if you try too hard to write to a user who doesn't want to hear from you.
Reaching People
Just sending a Facebook message doesn't guarantee that a user will read or respond to your note. Users have the option to choose strict filtering, which means that messages not from friends are sent to a separate folder. Even users with basic filtering only receive messages from users whom Facebook thinks might be connected to them. Messages that are sent to the "Other" folder don't generate notifications, so the person may not be aware that your message has been received. If you see a price underneath a message you're preparing to send, it means you have the option to pay to guarantee that the message ends up in the user's Facebook inbox and generates a notification.
References
Writer Bio
Melly Parker has been writing since 2007, focusing on health, business, technology and home improvement. She has also worked as a teacher and a bioassay laboratory technician. Parker now serves as a marketing specialist at one of the largest mobile app developers in the world. She holds a Master of Science in English.