Has anyone ever used one of the buy Facebook fan sites?

I just set up a Facebook page for a totally new business along with a teaser page. The Facebook page is looking a little lost. I still have some work to do to spruce it up and give it a little more credibility such as having a logo designed (via a wonderful site I found on here as a recommendation - 99designs.com). In the meantime I've invested in a couple of ads to try to generate some traffic for both the Facebook page and the teaser site. I'm keeping it very low budget to do some A/B testing on ads and on the landing page on my site. I'm thinking I'm stuck in a chicken and egg situation. I figure people are more likely to sign up to a Facebook page/application if there are already a fair number of users.

So in my research I came across a few sites that offered to sell fans. Reading the testimonials I approach with a little caution. I'm just wondering if 'purchasing' some fans might help get the ball rolling. I did the math on what I'm trying to spend on ads - and what I spent with another business - and it seems to weigh up as worth giving a shot. That said I don't want to get ripped off. Has anyone used such services and how do you rate the experience?

Stay away from those services. In most cases these are not legitimate businesses. These services usually acquire lots of Facebook fans by scamming people. I blogged about this once and can provide a link if it'll be helpful for you. (Edit: added link below.)

In addition to shady tactics, another downside is that you'll end up with a bunch of unengaged, uninterested fans. Having a lot of fans doesn't do you any good if they are not engaging with you. Building an active Facebook page takes time and work.

My advice is to either slowly do it yourself over time, or hire a reputable marketing or social media person to do it for you.

Edit: Per your comment, here is the post.

Another reason to avoid services like these is because of Facebook's EdgeRank. For every update you post, Facebook determines if it appears in each of your fans feeds based on factors like:

• how old the post is (newer is better)
• what type of update it is (photos are usually weighted the most, links seem to be weighted more than plain-text)
• how many people like it, and who's liking it

Facebook hasn't been specific about the exact algorithm, but I would not be surprised (having provided marketing services on Facebook for a number of clients) if percentage of your fans who like the update (as opposed to raw number that like the update) plays a role. This alone is good reason to avoid unengaged fans. Facebook has been making a lot of changes to what businesses can and can't do. Every use case is different, but generally the best use of Facebook for businesses will be customer engagment and customer retention, not customer acquisition. I'd focus your money and time on acquiring customers through other channels, and getting those customers to Like the page to keep them updated on news, answer questions, provide helpful how-tos, etc.

I doubt the reason people aren't liking your page is because a lot of other people haven't liked your page. Get some good content on your page that makes it compelling for people to want to like your page, they are not going to do it just because you want them to.

Also use your network and get everyone you know to become a fan, this will help to start to spread it virally.