Okay I'll try to answer this so that it makes sense ;-) I started off with a FB 'page' as in a 'LIKES' page!! This meant that I had to wait for or beg for likes from friends as you mention. It was a pain in the neck and I hated that I had to pester friends. The alternative was to set up a regular page just the same as your own personal one so you can send friend requests out all the time...or almost all the time. Mine uses my salon name just like it was my name so something like Lola Beauty would do or even better...Lola Beauty London! I try to send some friend requests out each day and try to ensure that they are to local people who are of use to me, not just randomers who live miles away or would have no interest in my product...though you just never know!! Facebook is very kind with their helpful tool 'People you may know!' I have a tanning and nails salon and have found that everyone wants to be your friend if you can make them tanned. I also do little things like comment on how many friends we have...'Wow we've just hit 400 friends...fantastic! First person to post a comment can have a free spray tan.' I was over the moon when the girls that have won have then posted on their own walls and have encouraged their own friends to follow us! Lucky or what! Today we did a 'Threadathon' so reduced the cost of threading for an hour and posted it on FB and Twitter. Also our customers are starting to post testimonials on our page about our tans etc...again without us asking them to which is soooo lovely and makes every day worthwhile! It helps that we are using Nouvatan and everyone seems to love it!!
Facebook and Twitter are amazing free tools so get using them and just try to think up new ideas all the time. I am so impressed by how well it is working for us...we opened almost 5 weeks ago and still haven't done any advertising! I was back to back on thursday and friday with spray tans!! Equally I don't want to appear be too cocky as it's very early days for us so fingers and toes crossed....oh and thank you Facebook