Claim Social Authority works just fine for ranking. Your problem could be that you're not up to speed with all the changes? YT has changed over the last year and is always changing now. What worked before easily doesn't work now, etc. No matter the case, your rankings won't last UNLESS you have a strategy. There are also too many factors for ranking. But from my experience, LIKES, COMMENTS, etc. weigh differently within different niches. They are far less important than people think -- depending on the niche. Why do you think some trending videos are up there and have more dislikes than likes? Or toy review videos have NO COMMENTS and NO LIKES yet they still rank for high tags within their niche? It's all about the niche you're in, and it's likely different for each niche.
I don't work for YT, so I am just using my own experience, but in the end, it's still all about WATCH TIME. And, depending on the tag you are aiming for, VOLUME of traffic within the first 24 hours. Even more importantly, SESSION TIME. Session time is something hardly anyone talks about. Session time is handled via keeping the visitor on YT for as long as possible -- not just on your video! So increase your session time, and YT will reward you with rankings -- and that's been talked about over the last year by many experts. YT wants to deliver great content, and they want to reward ANYONE that can help them do their job better. That's a given. You can increase session time by developing good playlists and using cards on your videos, etc. to direct users to those playlists.
