Facebook is a great way to generate general awareness to your 'friends' (term used loosely, it is facebook after all!' we use it & update it everyday. The main thing is that it is totally free, well for now anyway, so you have to make the most of something like this while you can! Basically we have a business page with pictures, videos, special deals updates, date reminders, funny quotes and the odd joke etc. We have been using facebook as one of our main marketing strategys for 4-5 months now, and have had good feedback. It won't reap massive rewards initially, as it takes more than just having a page for people to find, you need a newsletter or whatever medium you choose to market to existing custy's that promotes the page as almost a 'vip customer only' in the sense that all the new deals go up there before we release them to anyone else etc.
As for issues with profile privacy, bad responses etc, with the new style facebook, most of your privacy settings will be set at a low standard, and can all be customised in your account settings at the top right of the page, restricting anyone who isn't a 'friend' from veiwing anything other than your profile pic, and basic details like name, number of friends etc, no wall posts or pictures. Even if someone becomes a fan of your page, it just gives them access to your business page, not your personal profile.
As for bad comment's, you probably shouldn't be getting any (hopefully!) but to put your mind at ease, any unsavoury comments can be erased from public veiw, as long as you have administritive rights (the creator of the page)
Also worth a look, although we don't currently use it is facebook's use of the google style pay per click advertising service, but this depends, it will work better for frequent facebook users with a wider audience ('friends!')
It's just another string in the bow as the old man would say!
Hope this helps.