However it would likely be helpful for many of your readers to expand on that answer a bit. :)

ie. a sudden blast to each and every social media site on the planet would raise a ton of red flags to the search engines, but a measured trickling – coupled with other inbound links – would probably be a good thing.

I’ve read from good sources that a decently large blast of this type CAN be good for short-term rankings boost, but too risky for any website you want to maintain long term.