I thought I try a facebook page

Nope, not worked for me either.
I just dont get the idea of a load of strangers wanting to be my friend and they charge too much for an ad.

Depends how you use it, Web & Graphic Design | Kip FX | Facebook get decent interaction on this one, and some good traffic, but as with all things, you get out, what you put in.

I do not put a link up hoping that I get 100 customers today, I do it slowly to build up brand awareness. And another way to interact with clients too, instead of just waving goodbye once the job is finished.

I set up a simple Fan / Club page I think, not sure what it was

The reason I did it was ok a bit of self brand selling but to explain different aspects of fire protection and to offer good advice to domestic users ..

I m a ex firefighter so I still feel strong about fire protection in the home as I have seen what it can do, so I thought I pass on good advice and tips etc..

I did not look upon it as a selling tool but hoped that maybe it could lead onto something if it grew a big enough fan base.

My question is how do I spread the word across facebook passed my own list of family and friends

The $16 million question

If you are going for a gentle non sale, but passing info, so in otherwords you're not spamming your family and friends, then by posting it on your wall, will add it to their wall.

If you have 100 friends, and they all have 100 friends, you have just had a nice bit of promotion.

But its a dangerous tactic to mix business and personal, as friends will soon get miffed with thinly veiled salesy stuff. Better to have a business account, slowly build that up, and utilise that for your promotion. Then as with any other page, it's down to the content, if people think its worth acknowledgement, then they will.

You can add your fan page to stuff like forum signatures for example, maybe, Fire and Saftey advice, etc. Or a suitable title that may catch peoples interest, and get them to check it out. Then it's down to the quality of your page that will decide if they click away, like, or like with a post across their network. Its down to general marketing, and if you go the fan page route, then you need to market it in a similar way to your website.

Theres no quick and easy magic bullet, but if you find it, let me know

It depends how you use the social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter to do advertisement about your business to gain clients. If you want you can create two accounts. The other one is for business purposes while the other is for family and friends only.

There is the phrase "social networking". Not business, not commerce, but social.
Social is about just that - socialising.
I would advise 98% of business owners to avoid social media as a means of business promotion. If you have limited time or budget, why waste it on something that is as irrelevant as selling ice to Eskimos.

It distresses me the amount of valuable time some small business owners spend doing something that adds almost zero value to their business.

Good job Virgin Boss does not think like that . . .

Branson describes Virgin

As I see it - the social media vehicle is of value where there is a recurring and frequent need for the service or product.

Wetherspoons (pub) does well from it.
Various salsa clubs do exceptionally well from it.
'Fashionable' marketplaces where there is a constant need to be updated about what is or is not cool can do very well from it.

But most businesses?

I used to agree to a certain extent that social media may only appear to benefit certain biz types or brands, maybe with a more youthful or "cool" image, but now we have actively incorporated the facebook integration across our sites, I would have to re-evaluate.

I am genuinely surprised by the amount of traffic generated by facebook, and the volume of "likes" we receive which may not be direct $ in the bank, but is certainly free advertising, marketing and brand building, with no required management time now it is up and running.

Auto twitter feeds from this forum generate fresh traffic, so from a marketing point of view, I'm now a fully fledged social networking fan.

I think 2011 will be an interesting year as facebook slowly changes direction becoming more and more business friendly, and search engines potentially start utilising the "like" system as another algorithm signal to determine your rankings. If they don't this year, they will next year, otherwise FB will take over the Search Engine mantle.

Things like social search will become more of a reality instead of a buzz word, so businesses need to have all bases covered.

But I agree you shouldn't spend a disproportionate amount of time on social networking, and as with all things business, it's down to prioritisation, and needs slotting into your marketing plan.

If you don't have a marketing plan, then there's a New Years resolution ready and waiting