I see two advantages to sockets:
1- prevents you from frying the chip when soldering it (if you're not very skilled)
2- easily change the chip if it burns.
So it's really up to you. If you are sure if your circuit (e.g. you prototyped it on a breadboard, ...), there is no reason for it to fry. And unless you're really bad at soldering, you should be able to solder this chip without frying it. I wouldn't use a socket, but again it's up to you.
Chelmi.