“May we live in interesting times.” I don’t think that saying has ever been more true than today, in 2009.

My “aha!” moment came on November 4, 2008, the day Barack Obama was elected president of the U.S. Obama focused his campaign not on the color of his skin but on a grassroots effort that used Facebook, Twitter and his Web site to a great advantage. He mobilized a huge percentage of young Americans to campaign and raise money and his behalf, and his efforts resulted in the greatest fundraising success a presidential candidate has ever known. Regardless of whether or not you agree with Obama’s politics, there’s no denying the man and his staff ran an amazing campaign. Social media played a key part in his success.

Thanks to my journalism background, I’m especially interested in how we communicate. I’ve worked for a newspaper, and, although it saddens me that so many are in financial tatters, I’m excited to see where the next decade takes us.

However, I often feel like I’m hyperconnected — I’m running on information overload and can’t close the laptop or set down the BlackBerry for fear of something happening in the world without my knowing. I’m certain I’m not alone.

Although we all need a balance between our online lives and our offline ones, it’s still important for your organization to have an online presence. If you ignore tools such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you may find your organization becomes ignored itself.

Social media can help or hinder all organizations and companies — it depends on how you use the available tools. You can be shouting to an empty room on Twitter or using it to engage your members, cultivate relationships and share information.

One major mistake companies and organizations make is jumping into social media head first, without taking the time to find out where their customers or members are. Even when you begin a new social media endeavor, it’s especially important to remember that it takes time to build a following and create genuine, lasting relationships.

If your members are on Facebook (and chances are good that they are), get excited because MemberClicks is rolling out a new Facebook Connect feature in August that will let your members log in to your MC product using their Facebook ID.

Additionally, Facebook can be used to promote your organization and its cause. The “Causes” application is a popular add-on that can be placed on user’s profiles to get the word out about a cause or campaign they support. A huge benefit to this is that Facebook still holds the market on the younger age brackets (those under age 30), and using the Causes application can spread the word to a whole new demographic, and possibly get them even more involved in your organization.

NJ.com has a great explanation of how to set up a Causes feature for your organization — it’s vital to keep your content interesting and new and to engage and communicate with users as often as possible.

Your organization can also have a Fan Page and use Facebook’s Events application to promote upcoming meetings or webinars.

The best social media tool to use for real-time communication right now, though, is Twitter. It’s gotten a lot of media attention this year, and even though the company still hasn’t announced how it plans to monetize the service, its mentions in the past month alone have been worth $48 million. It’s the fastest (although sometimes not necessarily the most reliable) way to connect with professionals and people with whom you share interests.

For example, every Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST, association professionals on Twitter participate in #assnchat, a (somewhat dirty-sounding) discussion on issues facing the industry. We’ve talked about things such as how to make the most of ASAE 2009 for attendees who will only be there virtually and how to choose the best speakers and topics for meetings. One of the easiest ways to follow a chat is to go to tweetchat.com and plug in the hashtag you wish to follow. Unless Twitter is being slow (the chat was actually cancelled the day of Michael Jackson’s memorial service), it should refresh with real-time updates. It also includes the hashtag in your message so you don’t have to type it in every time.

Twitter supports real-time search, which makes it easy to search for the latest information on any given topic. And there are numerous applications that make the experience even easier — TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop are two of the leading desktop apps, and there are tons of apps for iPhones and BlackBerrys. These apps also keep track of how many mentions you receive, so it’s easy to keep track of feedback.

Your organization can use Twitter to promote events, spotlight a member, share a cool resource, connect with other groups and like-minded people and, of course, see what MemberClicks is up to! I’m always looking for and posting other blog posts with information small-staff associations and groups can benefit from, and we want to hear any feedback you may have — the good stuff and the bad stuff.

Additionally, Twitter is vital to creating a virtual meeting experience for non-attendees. It’s likely not every member can make every meeting, and by designating a specific hashtag for your meeting (#ASAE09 is coming up soon!), those who can’t make the meeting or event can follow the tweets of those who are present.

Cecilia Sepp wrote on her blog, “associations that deploy online social communities can expect higher levels of member retention, since they help to keep members active and engaged, and provide new levels of knowledge sharing and networking previously unavailable through passive website experiences.”

I couldn’t agree more, and MemberClicks is psyched to communicate with you in new and exciting ways.