SmallBusinessNewz

At this moment, a whole lot of Apple-related terms ("Apple Tablet," "#apple," "Frantic Steve Jobs," "iSlate," and "iTablet") are among the top trending topics on Twitter.  And mentions of them might get a small business noticed.  Only not everyone's equally fascinated by the idea of a tablet PC from Apple, and so businesses might do better using a new feature called Local Trends.

A post on the Twitter Blog announced late yesterday, "Last week we began to slowly roll out a new feature called Local Trends to expose what people are talking about on the state and city level, and today we've fully launched so everyone can use it."

The post then explained, "The big events that come up around the world will always become a global conversation, but what about the big events that only happen in your world that only matter to those around you? . . . .  Local Trends will allow you to learn more about the nuances in our world and discover even more relevant topics that might matter to you."

Since not all small businesses can count on (or are even trying to get) customers from different parts of the country or globe, Local Trends should help them better engage with people who live within a small area.

Local Trends might even prove useful to businesses that don't have active Twitter accounts, since the information supplied there can be used to fuel posts on Facebook, updates on a website, or articles in a newsletter.