• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, February 10, 2011

Facebook announced an overhaul of its brand pages aimed at increasing user interaction and patterned after the redesign of its user profile pages in December. The changes will essentially make company pages on the social network more like those for individuals.

When it comes to the layout, a left-hand navigation panel will replace the tabs found above a brand page's Wall. As with profile pages, brand page administrators will now be able to feature a panel of thumbnail photos across the top.

Fan pages will also gain the ability to "like" other pages and post comments to them, as well as have their own News Feed "where you can engage with the latest and most important news from other Pages you like," stated a Facebook blog post today. Brand page administrators can also opt to get notifications about fan activity on other pages.

To boost engagement, brand page managers can choose the "Everyone" filter for the Wall to highlight the most interesting updates. Instead of showing a reverse chronological stream of posts, the everyone tab will show users posts that Facebook thinks will be the most relevant.

"Recent posts by friends, posts by other users in the same language or country, and posts that have received a lot of Likes and comments will bubble to the top," according to the Facebook-tracking blog Inside Facebook.

By improving the user experience, that feature could lead brands and businesses to spend more on advertising to drive traffic to their pages, generating more revenue for the social network, argued Inside Facebook.