This week, Facebook will introduce a new set of features that will allow large franchises and corporations to manage all of their locations on Facebook Places simultaneously.

Previously, there was no built-in way to publish updates, install applications, or make other changes to several Place listings at once, even if those Places are organizationally related — for example, several franchise locations for a large fast food restaurant chain.

The new feature will allow companies to define a number of Places as “children” of a “parent” Facebook Page. Administrators of the Page will be able to publish updates and make changes to any individual Place, several at once, or even all at once. Furthermore, the new system will allow the top-level administrator to search individual Places by location or ID number. This will allow for corporate oversight of individual branches in addition to making it much easier for a company to manage deals and updates for multiple locations.

Furthermore, customers will see the connection between the Place and the parent Page on Facebook and move between them easily. Page administrators may optionally include a “Locations” tab on their Pages that help customers find nearby Places on a map.

News site Inside Facebook confirmed with Facebook that the new features will launch in a limited test with select business partners this week. That means most of us won’t be able to take advantage of this stuff just yet, but be patient; assuming all goes well, these features will roll out to everyone in the coming weeks. We’ll have a complete guide to using the new tools as soon as that happens.

It’s difficult to think of any reason why this wouldn’t be a great addition to Facebook’s lineup of features for businesses, and it sheds light on just how much catching up Google+ will have to do in terms of features to match what Facebook has to offer when Google launches business pages of its own in the near future.

Will these new Page and Place integration features make it easier to run your business and engage with customers? Let us know how you plan to use it in the comments.

[Image credit: lululemon athletica]