Is Linkedin really as good as we "think" or is it already an urban myth?

This question has been nagging me for a while. So many recruiters have claimed that they get all their hires from the job boards they use yet in reality they have no decent tracking to know where their hires really come from. Now Linkedin is flavour of the month but is it really just a load of hocus pocus? Has anyone got any real decent stats to prove their claims? I wanted to find out first hand so started digging with a Linkedin poll. 

Let me just start with the fact that I personally think Linkedin is a great site for lots of good reasons and, think the way a lot of their features work is excellent. But that is not enough for me; I like evidence!

What really got me thinking hard was information I was seeing from Linkedin Ads. I did quite a lot of testing which meant I was able to discount the actual ad content from being the key issue i.e. don't judge a site by a badly written or irrelevant ad. What I was seeing, was some interesting stats around visitor behaviours which made me question "How good is Linkedin as a recruiting platform?" The stats were not bad but I did see users acting quite differently during the week compared to the weekend for example. So my first question was:

"How often do you login to Linkedin?"

The poll was Linkedin poll of the week and over 30 days it had 1244 votes and 113 comments! Now these polls are great but also a bit limited so the evidence I got was only the start point. Highlights for me were:

• 82% of people login daily.
• Manager level are likely to login most days.
• Senior level highest response was "Only in response to an e-mail or invite".

So I feel a bit like a detective. My gut tells me Linkedin is guilty. It is a great place to recruit people but this initial poll doesn't give me enough evidence yet. I have a few more questions to ask the members before I can finally judge Linkedin but for now I'll be hot on their tail, watching their every move. The market has already judged them but I like to be sure.

What question should I ask next?