Guest post by Emily Thomas of Associate Degree.

Mind mapping has proven to be a successful way to organize thoughts and ideas into one generalized structure, revolving around a key concept. Along the way, mind maps have begun to infiltrate the digital era as well, culminating in software and other computer-savvy ventures.

Now, mind maps have been found within the social media world as well which has led to a wide array of resources through which we can now map out our lives. Social media and social networking have developed into a web of various networks in which it can become difficult to keep up with each individual site and user.

Generating a mind map that helps in sorting out all the different social media devices goes a long way in maintaining ties as well as keeping informed of updates. It seems that nearly every day, we are presented with a new form of popular social networking, such as the ever-increasing site Twitter which only recently made a name for itself in the industry.

LiveJournal has been able to provide its users with a mind mapping technique of sorts in which they are able to better organize the many updates within their world. Taking this a step further, mind maps can be applied to every social media site you belong to, from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, in an effort to keep you updated about everything that is going on without being forced to constantly click back and forth between the sites.

So far, the browser Flock has been able to generate something similar in that it allows a sidebar to keep the user constantly updated of these sites, regardless of what page they are on.

Revolving these sites around a key concept (maybe you want to be updated on a news article that your friends “Tweet” about or a specific person) would take the mind maps to a next level. Social media has transformed the Internet industry and does not seem to be in any danger of slowing down, so the next logical step is to simply map it out for all the users of these different sites.

The ability to be updated at the same time through all of your social networks would be much more time efficient than clicking through every site and every update, as would the ability to hone in on one specific tidbit of information which your friends could be blogging about.

This is a guest post by Emily Thomas who writes on the Associate Degree blog. Emily welcomes your feedback at emily.thomas31@yahoo.com.