Social networks refer, simply, to any sort of group, or groups, that any individual is associated. Be it personal, spiritual, sociological, or financial, you are definitely intertwined with, and connected to, many others. If you have ever experimented with the concept of six degrees of separation, you know how this works.

The paradigms come into play as you realize that some groups you interact with will have more meaning to you, and quite possibly more points of contact. Think of working in a large firm, for example. You are connected to every other person in that firm just by dint of working in the same company. However, there will be those with whom you are in direct contact with daily, thereby creating another group within the group.

Then there will be those with whom you socialize during, say, lunch hours or after hours, and that is still another group. The larger network, the company, may have less meaning to you than the smallest, being the social clique. However, there are points of contact throughout them both, connecting everyone to the whole.

These interconnected groups can increase or decrease in size and meaningfulness over time and different circumstances. Understanding this ubiquitous interconnectivity is useful in tapping into the potentialities of these networks. Upon close inspection, it is definitely possible that you can get the social means to any end through your existing circles of acquaintances.

You can apply this to the business world very easily. Multi level marketing relies on tapping into people that know other people all of the time. If you can sell a product to one man, he can recommend you to his sister, then she to their mother and father, and so on, ad infinitum.

This is also a very rich field for mining in the dating sense. There always seems to be someone who knows someone else whom you may be interested in seeing. The fact that this does not always work out is not too disconcerting, as another possibility will soon arise. Delve deeply enough into any given set and subset of people and the potentialities become almost limitless.

User generated electronic media has take this concept to an exponential degree. Every one who has an online friend is connected to all of their online friends, and this can very quickly multiply into a global network of like individuals literally at your fingertips. This concept of social networks is indeed a fascinating one, and its possibilities are rather astounding when applied with intent.