When I first involved myself in the Salesforce community space I branded myself as AdminZach for what I was doing at the time, being an #AwesomeAdmin! This has worked great for me growing my online presence highlighted by having a few thousand followers between Twitter and LinkedIn. I have achieved some level of recognition with AdminZach, at Salesforce community events I’ve had people refer to me as AdminZach which I absolutely loved.
I’ve desired to change my handle from AdminZach to something else for some time. If I’m saying everything is peachy, that I love the professional brand I’ve created for myself and there is a certain level of recognition… why would I want to change this? Well, let’s start with a brief about me and how I created the AdminZach brand.
I’ve loved working with technology my entire life
Growing up I was always the kid in the computer lab in school and playing with any piece of technology I could get my hands on. At a young age, I remember bringing down a home Windows 2000 and XP computer many times. When I realized in high school I had admin-level permissions on computers in the command prompt I quickly learned some network commands, a story I’ll share another day.
After high school, I went to college for Computer Technology Systems. I studied Windows Servers, Network Operations & Development, Databases, Computer Hardware, Microcomputer Hardware, oh and of course a few programming languages such as frontend languages like HTML, CSS, and Javascript with some occasional PHP and python thrown in. After college, I began performing data recovery for businesses and consumers, then moved into healthcare electronic medical record database support.
In both of the roles above I was using Salesforce and in the latter is where I became the Salesforce admin for a startup back in late 2016/early 2017. I was pretty hyper-focused on my career and the idea of being a Salesforce Admin. I didn’t really use social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn so after I got involved with the Salesforce community in Austin in 2017, I created a goal to create my online brand.
Creation of AdminZach on Twitter & LinkedIn
It was really Monica Sandberg (@NotIsBlank) and Misty Jones (@MistyRaeJones) that convinced me at TrailheadDX 2018 to launch my social media. I believe it was during an E Komo Mai event that they really pushed for everyone to have both a Twitter and LinkedIn. They were absolutely right in how valuable both are to have. It truly has been a blessing to be able to connect with so many other like-minded individuals.
I conducted a tiny bit of research on what others were calling themselves and ultimately settled on AdminZach to be unique. I didn’t really put too much thought in where my career could go in five years and focused on where my career is currently at when creating my social media. I quickly got excited about social media and spent a lot of time researching this whole new world… impressions, engagement, follows, followers, so many new terms to learn!
Over the years since launching myself as “AdminZach” although it has been so much fun and exciting there have also been some drawbacks for putting my online brand into a square representing my career at the time. It wouldn’t be incorrect for me to state that I’ve also heard some negative connotations with “You’re just an Admin” and “Why aren’t you X” (Insert Dev, Architect, Product Owner, Manager, or Salesperson here). Rather than try and brand myself as just one thing, I decided I’m going to associate myself with a general word with something I enjoy.
Now if I could go back and set my online brand up to something different I would want to future-proof the handles. I want to have an online persona where regardless of whether I’m an Admin, Architect, Product Owner, Manager, Developer, End User, or just a Technologist my handle can reflect and support that for many years.
Creation of TechieZach.Com and Social Media Handles (Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Instagram!)
With the timing of my most recent certification, Salesforce Certified Application Architect, I decided to take this opportunity to change all my social and launch a website where I can host more content and give back to the community even more.
Rather than rebrand as ArchitectZach, I decided for a more generalist approach and name myself TechieZach! I think this goes in line with my little about myself above and should better stand the test of time. I will also try to deliver more content on two additional social channels, Instagram and Youtube. You can check out all of my social media here:
If anyone has any suggestions on content to make whether it be blog posts, videos, or pictures for Insta feel free to make suggestions. You can reach out to me on social media, or by filling out this handy dandy contact form. I’d love it if you subscribe to my newsletter below:
