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s a way to grow a business, electronic mail is so, well, 20 years ago.

Nowadays, small companies are sending out “tweets” on Twitter, making connections on Manta.com and collecting friends on Facebook.

Sure, e-mail is still the communication device of choice for sending out directives from management or asking a co-worker to have that project done by Monday at noon. But businesses are becoming consistently more sophisticated when it comes to getting their message out to the masses — and pronto.

Whether you’re a nonprofit, a service business or one that exists to sell a product line, the effective (and prof-itable) use of social media is considered a survival skill these days. It’s the best way not only to make contact, but to do it on a day-by-day, or in some cases hourly basis. That fact is apparent in Beaverton, Tigard and Sherwood.

Take 28-year-old Rachel Lenz, for example. A third-generation member of a family-owned vehicle and vehicle products dynasty — her grandfather is car sales giant Bob Lanphere and her dad, Gary Lenz, is general manager of Beaverton Motorcycles — she’s all about communica-tions innovation.

Two years ago, the younger Lenz started an online Facebook page for the motorcycle, all-terrain vehicle and

watercraft sales store across Highway 217 from Washington Square. As of Feb. 23, the company had 1,768 “friends” on Facebook, folks who are privy to every special event Lenz plans and every upcoming in-store special.

In mid-February, for instance, Lenz posted a “Sweetheart Ride” benefiting the Providence Brain Institute on Facebook and drew 40 motorcyclists. “We’ve been trying to get more people involved, and Facebook has been a great way to do that,” said Lenz. “If we can get people to think about riding and making it a part of their life instead of a two-months-a-year recre-ational thing, that’s awesome.”

Last Saturday, March 12, Beaverton Motorcycles host-ed a party for all its Facebook followers at the store. Attendees watched the 2011 American Motorcycle Association’s Supercross series on a pair of big screen tel-evisions while enjoying a live announcer as well as hot dogs and pop.

That’s the kind of up-to-the-minute opportunity Lenz expects to tweet about now that her company’s Twitter account is up and running.

“We can sync our Twitter to our Facebook page to get the widest possible audience,” noted Lenz. “The advan-tage is that we can tweet whenever we want. If we sent out a Facebook update 10 times in one day, people would hate us. But on Twitter, we can run a two-hour special and tap into potential customers without annoying them.”

Tweets “get people thinking about our store in the middle of the day,” added Lenz. A month ago, when snow was in the winter weather forecast, she tweeted that it was a good day to come in and pick up a generator. This sum-mer, she might announce an afternoon sale on a certain ATV model.

Lenz is also eager to try her hand at blogging, or cre-ating a web-based journal. “I’d like people to feel like part of our family by participating with posts to the blog,” she said.

In Old Town Sherwood, hair salon owner Theresa Pfaffle Thompson has upped the ante on Facebook usage by posting several times a week on her Eclectic Energies page. The nearly 8-year-old business has remained on the cutting edge of technology through Thompson’s online efforts.

Part of her motivation came when the economy turned sour a few years back.

“It used to be that everyone was making money hand over fist,” notedThompson, who lives in Newberg and has been a stylist for 20 years. When she opened Eclectic Energies Hair and Body Worx in 2003, she was a solo stylist whose days were filled with appointments and salon updates.