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Although social interactions are known to drive pathogen transmission, the contributions of socially transmissible host-associated mutualists and commensals to host health and disease remain poorly explored. We use the concept of the social microbiome—the microbial metacommunity of a social network of hosts—to analyze the implications of social microbial transmission for host health and disease. We investigate the contributions of socially transmissible microbes to both eco-evolutionary microbiome community processes (colonization resistance, the evolution of virulence, and reactions to ecological disturbance) and microbial transmission-based processes (transmission of microbes with metabolic and immune effects, inter-specific transmission, transmission of antibiotic-resistant microbes, and transmission of viruses). We consider the implications of social microbial transmission for communicable and non …