Tony Robbins – Buffalo Content Maker

Now there's a challenge! Love the idea of the collection of great minds and sharing it with others for the benefit of the group. Honestly, it sounds just like Third Tribe.

Godin's Small Is The New Big is another example buffalo content making, although I think it's really a bit more blatant in that it is very clearly republished blog posts.

I'm going to gradually repurpose old content at Broadcasting Brain into new and improved posts at Thoughtwrestling (and have already started to do so), but in more relevant, focused, and applicable ways. From buffalo burgers to buffalo steak, I guess.

In a way, it's kind of using the Archimedes principle, but with both content and the help of other people, no?

Thanks for the term Buffalo Content Maker — now I know how to describe what I'm doing. At my work, it is just me doing communications, so I have to be especially cognizant of my time. I don't write a story/do a video/set up media op if I can't think of at least three ways I'm going to use it. I used to call it re-purposing, now I'm “Buffaloing.” Thanks.

Around here, we call that Donut Hole-ing. http://www.dogwalkblog.com/donuts-and-business…. Buffalos always reminds me of a story I was once told by an old sulky racer maker, a large fiberglass buffalo and a very startled truck driver in Oklahoma. Story for another day. :-)

Chris,

That's exactly what I've done with my “university.” And, I like buffalo meat.

JL

I sat next to a woman on a plane recently who is one of a very few female executives in the meatpacking industry. Her specialty was offal and she told me about how business is booming since what's considered scrap in the US is quite desirable in other markets. It wasn't a huge surprise to me since my mom is Asian and they tend to use all the parts, too, but it got me thinking about how we, as a culture, perceive value and usability. Too often we underestimate what it is that we have to give. Time to reevaluate and spread the wealth.

Love it, Chris. Thanks for teaching and inspiring.

This post may motivate me to try an new idea for my parenting blog. I brainstorm my own parenting and kids' needs with my husband often and have recently thought how illuminating those conversations could be for other parents. I always learn something or make a new connection. My husband often does too. Maybe other parents could benefit as well. The conversations capture more breadth and depth than I can in a blog post.

Great lesson.

This is a really neat way to describe what I usually call integrated marketing. I wonder how many definitions of integrated marketing there are now. You can integrate traditional media with traditional media, Social Media with Social Media, Social Media with books…crazy amount of mixture.

Coming from the perspective of a B2B marketing firm, I have to put in a plug for ways to integrate the “traditional” media side of things into the equation beyond putting together a book. For example, why not record the video to CD in addition to posting to YouTube or another video sharing site. Send the CD, with a nicely designed label, via a classy direct mail piece. Include a form or a lead back to a special landing page on your site. Easy to measure ROI, multiple uses for your video content.

Similarly, I think it's important from a company perspective to think about how content can be generated for online purposes but then re-tooled for use in completely different ways. Can a great shot from a video be recreated via photography and used for booth graphics or an ad? Could a positive comment or LinkedIn review become a case study that gets published in a trade publication?

The possibilities are endless and I think people have only just begun to scratch the surface.

@RealLifeMadMan

Love the Buffalo analogy, Chris. Tony's brilliance was in recognizing that a huge percentage of his audience was probably also relatively ignorant about the ins and outs of online marketing and would gobble up a well-produced subscription product delving deeply into the subject. I've seen a few of the interviews in this series and they're uniformly GREAT! It's to Tony's credit that he knows how to put his guests in a relaxed and open state and draw out the best they have to offer.

To your point of getting maximum mileage out of one's content I can only say, “Right On!” It's a strategy everyone should consider when creating content. Think about all the different ways it can be leveraged and deployed. Certainly not for the sake of redundancy, but simply to provide your audience with multiple ways of consuming your stuff; each one presenting it in such a way that it takes on new life and meaning.

I'm only a few chapters into Social Media 101 and I'm really digging the way its ideas are organized. Having never been exposed to most of this material when you originally blogged about it I'm glad you decided to repackage it. And it's a great example of the Buffalo Content strategy in action!

Regards,

Doug

This post couldn't have been more timely, Chris. It's fuel for the fire. One question Mary-Lynn and I have been discussing lately: Do you begin with the end in mind (i.e. a finished product which you write posts around to promote)? If so, what do you post about in the mean time? Or do you post about what's inspiring you now and then accumulate posts with a common theme (plus some premium content) into a product? If so, don't you still need some plan at the beginning of the series? Or maybe it's both and I'm just belaboring a useless point?!

Tony Robbins is a great motivational speaker because he has spent his lifetime paying attention to his own inward self-talk. When you train your mind to support you with whatever you are up to, you learn the universal laws of success quickly – one of which is: Use all the parts of everything; throw nothing away …. and give a lot (of what you have) away. The Law of Multiple Returns kicks in and takes care of the rest. I cannot say to often, 'what we sow we reap'. Tony wins because he is very aware of sowing. You win because you are very aware of sowing, Good lesson; Chris.

“You can count the number of seeds in one apple, although you can never count the number of apples from one seed.” anonymous. when we come from our head, our thoughts are limited to what we know. when we come from our hearts, we are open to endless possibilities. thank you, chris, for continuing to show us the new business model of creativity vs. competition; expansion and value, vs. contraction and protecting our property and assets. make everything better than you found it, and everyone benefits, including your business and profits when you allow yourself to share.

Very cool observation Chris. Reminds me of the chapter in Rework that talked about “selling your by-products”.

Hey Chris – here's a question for you… When you spin blog posts into a bigger project, were you writing those blog posts with the object of spinning it into something else from the get go, or did it evolve more organically? You wrote a bunch of posts, and then said, “Hey, this would make a great book.” Which do you think makes more sense?

I ask because I run two blogs, and I'm writing each one differently, and I can't decide what's going to work best long-term…

That's a great idea. For me- I want to know more about film making and how I can use social media to make connections and realize dreams in this area; now I need to get some people involved in film making (much more so than me, even professional) and then talk about it. There after to break out the discussions into blog post series – discussing the findings and thoughts, hopefully garnering more discussion online. Actually filming it is a seriously “next level” kind of thing. Definitely something to think of

Chris,

I am honestly envious of the way your imagination works! You always seem to find an interesting way to make analogies and have them make sense to regular people. I know I could definitely learn a lot from you… guess that's why I read your blog.

In terms of using the entire buffalo, I have finally found interesting ways of doing this in my business over at Social Video Labs.

At first, we began making cool videos for clients, doing animated intro's, and other neat graphical branding stuff. Since then, we have been able to use what we do there to teach the community how to do better videos. Sometimes with videos that we make, other times by finding good video's on Youtube that have good content and then provide tips to the reader on how they could improve the technical mishaps in the video. This gets continued through our social interacitons, then through a book I am writiing, onto a course planned for this summer and so on. I am quite sure I still haven't used the entire buffalo, but we are always looking for ways to continually build on the content we in new ways.

This is good stuff!

Another thought I just had, actually another great example of what you are talking about. Look at what Darren Rowse at Problogger did with his 31 days book. The book was actually created using somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of stuff he had already done on the blog. This book sold, and is still selling like hot cakes.

This idea – it;s been around for a while – is another good reason to continue to create great content. When a track record is created over time, an eye on re-purposing the information into an ebook. In a way, it's like cloning your own information. Cool.

Your reference to Native American treatment of animals reminds me of my three years living in Alaska. The Eskimos and Indians make it a point to use every part of every animal that they hunt. As I sit here writing I am looking at beautiful carved walrus ivory, seal mittens, wonderful maks made out of animal fur, a piece of baleen from a Baleen whale that has been etched and it a piece of art. I am also thinking that I just worked for an hour + to write an email to a client about how to manage their new Facebook page. After reading your post, I am going to take my email and tidy it up to write a blog post, that way I will build content for all of our clients. Talk to you later.