One of my clients has asked me to look into the value for them to set up a Facebook Fan page for their business. They are not the author of their main product offering but they have authored two utilities that work with the product. Their main product offering is an accounting app from Microsoft. Does anyone have any experience using Facebook in a case like this? Any input would be welcome.

I actually have helped create a few business related fan pages. Do keep in mind that most people who do sign up to become fans of a page find out either through:
1. Seeing their friends' update if they joined.
2. Receiving an invite email from the company asking them to join.

Most Facebook users will not actively search for a Facebook page. Kee that in mind.
In regards to your client, it will help include information about these utilities and even an advertising campaign on Facebook may help drive traffic to the page.

The reason why they were curious about FB pages was because they just signed up for hosting with a company that gave them a $50 credit for Facebook Ads. Can you tie the ads to your facebook page?

Fanpages are a good tool to grow some community around your product.

They could use it to poll their users, recruit new ones and create buzz about upcoming launches.

You need to have a specific strategy in place for them.

Some viral report that members can share, some rewards in place to encourage participation.

Simply sticking up a fanpage and waiting for something to happen isn't really a strategy.

All of this was understood prior to my initial post as these are the same basic steps for putting togther any marketing activity. I was looking specifically for anyone who has set up a facebook page to promote the products and services of a company when they are not the creators of the products. Thanks for the input.

The answer is not the same for every business. Some businesses can benefit from it more than others and some will never benefit from such an attempt unless they understand what they should do with it (and that varies depending on the business)

I have heard of businesses promoting themselves through facebook profiles however I don't see much value in simply trying to recruit fans - a business facebook page should be providing something to it's users. Periodic coupons, useful information. If it's something very commercial looking few people are likely to stay members long. You may even want to get away from the business aspect in a facebook page and talk more about the sites local community and interesting thing the business is doing or news of interest to your customer base.

These efforts CAN be very successful and financially rewarding but if done poorly can also harm a businesses image and offend customers.

I just got a call from a friend a moment ago asking me the same question. I said it is better to just do personal outreach than using an automated service.

well active participation helps in increasing the chance of people visiting your site.
because this way your fan page keep popping up in people updates and thus more chances it has of catching somebody's eye.

Thanks everyone for what you have contributed so far. On my own I have spoken to some other people in the IT industry and their advice was to give it a shot but not put too much effort in. They said this because, in their words, it is a crap shoot and results could go either way.