(Although they look and function much the same way, a Facebook “Fan Page” for an entity or person is different from a “Profile Page”. Just so it’s not confusing enough, there are also “Groups”.
It’s not nearly as jumbled as it sounds – I wish they would just get rid of Groups, actually – they’re completely superfluous.)
Your Facebook Fan Page isn’t a used car lot.
It should be much more like a 1999 Borders store.
(I say 1999 because of the need to eliminate the “but publishing and book stores are in dire straights” portion of the discussion.)
Anyway, 1999 Borders.
Come in, hang around, enjoy yourself. Read a book. Lounge around in the chairs. There’s free/valuable/entertaining information all around you, and it’s a comfortable place to go when you need to kill time, or want to learn something, or maybe when you just want a nice environment to exist in for a bit.
It’s all about you and making your experience more or less what you want it to be.
There’s also stuff to buy, if you want to.
People in 1999 Borders enjoy being there, and it’s not because they’re friends with the CEO or like the logo.
They go because it has value provided and they enjoy being there.
That’s what your Fan Page needs to engender – it won’t do anything for you if it’s just a sales brochure. Things just don’t work like that anymore.
The question then becomes, how can you take your product/service/entity, and build a compelling environment around it?
