I say no, and I just blogged about it. This is an argument I am having with a major company, and I would love to hear all intelligent comments. This blog is aimed towards the car business, and good comments will be awaded a dofollow with linkluv, plus the link appearing the the homepage: http://www.showroomlogic.com/blog/a...oost-your-rankings-in-the-search-engines.htmlhttp://www.showroomlogic.com/blog/att-car-dealers-youtube-videos-channels-will-not-boost-your-rankings-in-the-search-engines.html
Yep, spot on. You will get little-to-no link equity from back links on most social media sites as they employ the nofollow tag. Someone will tell you about the traffic benefits too but that is fairly obvious. It is possible to have YouTube videos showing up on the SERP for your desired keyword too. Make sure you use the keyword in the filename/video title, description, etc.
I agree about showing up in the serps, but it also depends on your industry. The tough ones won't show before the website (on page 1)