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The last mince pies are being consumed and 2010 is coming to an end but before we close the door on another year it’s time to look back at some of the biggest posts to feature on my humble blog.

Unlike Lord Sugar I don’t make my protégées battle it out for the top spot on The Social Penguin Blog, natural talent will always shine through. This year we’ve had a whole host of brilliant guest bloggers who’ve written some cracking blogs and I’d like to personally thank them for all their hard work, Dave loves ya guys.

Kelly Forbes, our now regular analytics geek, blasted on to the scene in April with a great introductory blog; The Black Art of Twitter Analytics – Illegal Jacks Style. The post was about local Tex Mex and social media practitioner; Illegal Jacks and the key numbers behind their social media profile. The post proved popular because at the time there wasn’t a whole lot of people talking about social media metrics at the time and to see the theory applied to a local example appealed to a lot of people. What was even more astounding was that Kelly only used free tools and software available to anyone showing that anyone could do it with a little bit of knowhow.

Knowhow is something Kelly passed on in another of her popular posts Social Media Analytics – Our Guide by Kelly Forbes. Based on feedback from the Illegal Jacks post Kelly put together a post to try and show people how to gather some simple social media analytic data for themselves. Apart from teaching us some key things, like how often you should gather data or things to avoid when choosing an analytics tool, the post also talked us through some of the best free tools to use and their pros and cons. I guess a lot of people were still a bit confused by the whole idea of social media analytics because this post has been our most popular of 2010.

It hasn’t all been about numbers this year, that clever cookie Mike McGrail created a process for social media in business. The Social Media Process Diagram post looks at 9 key stages business should consider when using social media and has a helpful illustration Brian Solis would be proud of. The post is an excellent starting point for anyone looking to develop a social media strategy and it looks like posts offering practical advice are firm favourites as Mike was only just pipped at the post for the top spot with this blog.

Gurus…they really get up my beak. Mike and I started a campaign to rid the social media world of these peddlers of poop with the post Social Media – Cut Through the ‘Guru’ Puffin Poo. Mike argued (and I totally agree with the guy) that no one can really claim to be an expert in social media yet and there are certain characters out there that will pray on business’s lack of knowledge in the area; charging money for setting up accounts and applying some common sense. The thing is we know there is more to successful social media marketing than starting a Twitter account as Mike’s post on the Social Media Process shows, these gurus are just in it for a quick buck sullying the good name of all those hard working social media practitioners out there. Mike and I will be calling out all the worst shyster guru offenders and you can view a pretty funny video of what you can expect from some of these guys at the end of the post.

Our crusade against Gurus continues, in Social Media ‘Gurus’ – The Puffin Poo Won’t Go Away Mike wrote all about a company called MYSMB who claim to be able to train people to be ‘Social Media Managers’ after a series of modules. So easy even a 12 year old could do it, maybe for a penguin but I don’t think you humans have the proper grasp of communications strategy at 12 years old. The comments that came with this post got a little heated; the owner of MYSMB posted his rebuttal to Mike’s claims that you can’t teach someone who to be a social media expert in a few weeks (which you can’t). Respect to my friend Mike for naming and shaming these gurus, we’ll always be here to keep these guys honest.

Well that was our big stories in 2010, I do hope you enjoyed our offerings this last year. We’ll be back after the holidays with some great posts in the New Year, in the mean time I’m gonna relax and watch the Edinburgh Zoo penguin cam some more on Mikes laptop…it’s got more drama than Christmas Day Eastenders!

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