Previously, I shared my perspective on the idea of overthinking and how it is the enemy of creatives – it’s an almost instant destroyer of quality work.  Something synonymous with overthinking is the idea of trying too hard.

Where overthinking will stop creative work from even happening in the first place, trying too hard merely produces results not worth sharing.  Remember - productivity is not necessarily creativity.

There are an influx of businesses embracing content marketing.  While many are engaging, the truth is most will fail at achieving anything close to the potential results.  It’s not that effective digital strategies are hard to come by or the tactics are misunderstood.  The problem is digital channels are inherently social, and businesses, as they do with most things, try too hard (and on the wrong things).  They make it about revenue over passion, and by doing so will never even have a chance at seeing revenue.

Let’s get into some specific reasons why if you try too hard your results will suffer:

Natural dialogs flow freely and easily – like art

Most force it, versus keeping a dialog with the world.  What exactly is a dialog?  It’s natural and unforced.  It’s art.  And most businesses and executives don’t know the first thing about art.  Even in creative industries like music and movies – many involved wouldn’t know art if it smacked them in the face.

Readers don’t want to interact with content and people who look like they’re trying too hard

It’s painful to read or interact with companies who are “going through the motions” of social media.  When many read the same books/blogs or see popular presenters – they get it into their head that doing something – like creating digital content as part of their digital marketing strategy – should be done in a certain way.  So they’ll bring what they think are best practices into their company and beginning create content.  Yet best practices are the antithesis of social web participation – unless you think there are best practices to human interaction.  Perhaps.  If you’re dealing with robots or you treat people as numbers.

Content as the product of a forced process sounds contrived

Have you read many corporate blogs?  Seriously read them, not just skimmed their posts.  I don’t know if you’re noticing the same things as I am but most businesses can’t create content worth reading (let alone sharing), it’s just painful.  Even when they’re trying to be personal, the words lack style and wreak of approval processes.  It’s like someone went the extra mile to remove any sense of individuality.

Passion is a secret of the social web

And passion spawns flow experiences:

During a true flow experience, creativity is effortless, your work will move forward at amazing speed, and time itself will cease to have meaning. This is the mindset which will produce your most creative, most thought provoking, and potentially most successful results.

Flow experiences only occur if you’re passionate about what you’re doing.  A funny thing happens when you enter a flow experience – while you’re not consciously trying, your results run circles around those who are trying too hard because they have unnatural pressure thrust upon them or were forced to do something.

Your social participation shouldn’t seem, it should be effortless

If you have to try to divert attention or use trickery to appear effortless, people will see through it.  Web users are connected, activated and smart.  They’re not as easy to manipulate as mass markets swayed by obvious attempts at coercion.  You walk a thin line by by seeming one way and in reality being another.  This only succeeds at putting your digital reputation at risk.

Ever seen a movie where the guy who tries too hard actually gets the girl at first?

Exactly.  That’s not what attracts us as humans.  We inherently want we can’t have, not what is begging for attention.  It’s not just in the game of love, in marketing if you’re obviously begging for our attention we’re never going to give you any, at least the forms of it that matter.  You can interrupt us all you want but you’ll never have any real influence, authority or trust.

The rest of us aren’t trying too hard

We’re participating in the web’s remix culture, we’re analyzing news and ideas and we’re getting into debates/discussions about topics that matter to us.  We love what we do and we’re irrationally committed.  But don’t mistake this  for trying too hard – they’re very different things.

I’m friends with many artists and writers and in watching them work over the years, none who have talent ever appeared to have to try very hard.  Their actions are natural, purposeful and measured.  If trying too hard worked, it would be easy for businesses to succeed in a digital society:  they would simply hire the greediest workers only interested in money.  And that’s exactly how not how to achieve digital marketing results that matter.