It’s the end of the year folks, and at Salesforce Ben we’d like to acknowledge the best of the best. This year (and for many more to come), we will be awarding SFBen’s community content standouts – those who have proven to be knowledgeable, creative, and all-around true Trailblazers.
We hope to make this an annual event, becoming bigger and better each year. As Salesforce continues to release new products and specializations, the number of categories will also increase – and with these, the possibility of winning a Benny!
What Are the Bennys?
The Bennys are our annual opportunity to distinguish the best content creators in the eight categories below – from admins to DevOps, does our selection surprise you? Any categories you would like to see next time around?
Each category will have a winner and two runner-ups. The winning criteria is based on a variety of factors, from creativity and expertise to audience ‘lovability’.
So, without further ado, may we present 2022’s Benny winners.
Most Pageviews
Let’s begin with the most literal category. During the past year, Salesforce Ben has seen exponential growth across various types of content – not only did we relaunch our YouTube channel, but our overall site viewership has skyrocketed! This is due to the fantastic Salesforce guides and updates we post every week.
We must tip our metaphorical hats to Tim Combridge for his marvelous post, The Complete Guide to Salesforce Flow in 2022. Released three days after the new year, Tim was right to take a deeper dive into one of 2022’s hottest Salesforce topics. He breaks down into bite size chunks content that could be overwhelming for some, and the results clearly indicate his success.
Notable Mentions:
- Salesforce Dynamic Forms: Overview and Deep Dive Tutorial by Christine Marshall
- How to Use Validation Rules in Salesforce by Lucy Mazalon
Top Admin Content
In case you don’t already know, a huge chunk of our community consists of Salesforce Admins. While we dedicate a lot of the site’s real estate to other personas, this one takes the cake in terms of content. There is so much ground to cover, picking our top admin contributor was no easy feat.
Nine months ago, we released Valentina Moroz’s epic post: What is Vlocity (Salesforce Industries?). Many of our readers must have been scratching their heads wondering the same thing, as this blog’s reception was off the charts.
Notable Mentions:
Top Career Content
If you follow us on our socials, or are present on our site, you know that at Salesforce Ben we have one goal: to help our readers accelerate their careers. It doesn’t matter which stage you find yourself in professionally, we strive to publish valuable content for everybody in the industry to enjoy.
As stated earlier, there is a long list of criteria which would qualify someone for a Benny. One of them, and the one that is most likely to give you bonus points, is creativity. And what’s more creative than walking around for a whole day with your camera, documenting your every move?
While she may not be brand new to Salesforce, this has been Megan Tuano’s first year creating content with Salesforce Ben. Her video, A Day in the Life of a Salesforce Consultant, breaks down her daily schedule, tasks, and work/life balance.
Notable Mentions:
- The Salesforce Career Checklist: Which Salesforce Partner to Join? by Josh Matthews
- Top Trailhead Badges to Earn in 2022 by Yelena Slobard
Top Flow Content
As it’s a tool touched by (almost) every Salesforce persona, Flow is one of the hottest topics in the ecosystem, right? Which is why we had to create a category exclusively for it. With each Salesforce release, new updates leave admins, marketers, and users scrambling to learn and prepare for the new product launch.
One of our in-house Flow experts, Tom Bassett, loves Flow and jumps at any opportunity to learn more about the new features and share his exciting discoveries with the rest of the world – just like he did with 10 New Salesforce Flow Features in Summer ’22. We applaud his efforts and willingness to spread the knowledge with others in the community.
Notable Mentions:
- 10 New Salesforce Flow Features in Winter ‘23 by Tim Combridge
- Complete Guide to Salesforce Flow Limits & How to Avoid Them by Melody Lwo
Top Developer Content
Next up in the Bennys: our top developer content creator. The world of Salesforce Developers is a tricky one, in which this individual has had to keep up with the ever-changing technologies Salesforce offers. Thankfully, the demand for this sort of skill never dies, which is why anybody considering a career as a Salesforce Developer needs to be primed and ready for some complex interviews.
Alex Crisp knocked it out of the park with 30 Salesforce Lightning Interview Questions & Answers. We’re sure he has helped many job seekers land their next role and guided those who may have needed a little bit more practice.
Notable Mentions:
- The Salesforce Trigger Handler Framework by Shumon Saha
- Salesforce Impact Analysis: 4 Free Tools by Pablo Gonzalez
Top DevOps Content
Ever since Salesforce announced the release of the DevOps Center during TrailheaDX in 2020, many have scrambled to get a behind-the-scenes look at the long-awaited product. What is it? What does it do?
As of December 9, 2022, the DevOps Center became Generally Available to any Salesforce user across the globe and Ian Gott’s DevOps Center Guide was prepped and ready for their guidance.
Ian has had access to the platform’s beta version and took a deeper dive so you wouldn’t have to. His guide helped many understand the DevOps Center, which is what we at Salesforce Ben aim to do with all our content – bravo!
Notable Mentions:
- What is Salesforce DX? The Definitive Guide by David Runciman
- Build Your Own CI/CD Pipeline in Salesforce (Using GitHub Actions) by Pablo Gonzalez
Top DRIP (Marketing) Content
Salesforce has so many marketing products available in their roster, it can be difficult to know where to begin. From Pardot to Marketing Cloud, choosing a single Benny winner for this category was daunting.
Professional marketers (and every other Salesforce professional, honestly) are often tasked with a never-ending list of projects and campaigns they just don’t have time for. First comes the creation, then comes the monitoring. With How to Attribute UTM Parameters to Salesforce Campaigns, Carl Mortimer has made marketers’ lives easier by showing there are many processes you can automate, saving your team time and money.
Notable Mentions:
- What is Salesforce Interaction Studio? by Chris Manion
- 5 Pardot Studio Engagement Examples by Timo Kovala
Most Social Shares
It’s been a good year over at SFBen… OK fine, every year is a good year! But this year was particularly great because we doubled our followers across all social platforms! Our goal is to spread the Salesforce word across the world on as many platforms as possible, and obviously we couldn’t do that without our contributors.
We owe our large following to many people, but Stacy O’Leary takes the 2022 Benny for the most social shares with her post, 11 Excel Tips Every Salesforce Admin Needs. Excel can be scary for many, but fret not, as Stacy has broken it down into the simplest of terms so admins can have an easier work life.
Notable mentions:
- Learn Salesforce Order of Execution by Marlene Reeve
- Salesforce Environments: Which Do I Use and When? By Haley Coxon
Summary
We wish we could include every single one of our contributors, but there are just too many to count!
I’d like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a happy end of the year, and a great beginning to 2023. The Salesforce Ben community is made up of the best of the best, and we look forward to continuing our growth and seeing what the 2023 Bennys have in store for us.
And who knows? We may open the awards to nominations from the community next year…