Can someone clear up social signals as a ranking factor?

[CustardOnlineMarketing]

I'm aware that Google have addressed this before and specifically said that social signals are not a ranking factor: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2325343/matt-cutts-facebook-twitter-social-signals-not-part-of-google-search-ranking-algorithms

However I came across this (admittedly great) infographic from Neil Patel, an SEO I have a lot of respect for: http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/01/31/how-social-signals-impact-search-engine-rankings/

In the post he specifically states that "both Google and Bing use data from social sites in order to determine how high to rank your website."

I have always understood that social signals help drive links by spreading your content to a bigger audience, thereby getting your content in front of people who are likely to link. I also appreciate that content that is shareable is also likely to be linkworthy.

However. Neil doesn't talk about correlation here, he talks about social signals as a ranking factor. Is he being misleading, or has the game changed since Matt Cutts said they don't use social signals?

[GrouchyKids]

I don't know the actual answer but this http://themoralconcept.net/pandalist.html implies that they are or were up until very recently.

[matbennett]

I think that John Mueller confirmed that they are not using social signals as a factor as well.

I believe personally believe that to be strictly true. That doesn't mean that at good social presence can't help you rank though.  A successful social presence will create other positive signals.  For instance if Google considered repeat visits to be a positive signal then this is a signal that comes as a by-product of a strong social presence.

That all said, it probably isn't a brilliant use of resources to "do social" just for rankings.  Social media can bring targeted traffic and conversions, build brand loyalty, increase your reach etc. These are all good reasons to use social media.  If you are using it for those reasons then any benefit to rankings is a free extra.