There’s a fascinating strategy I see quite often.
It goes something like this:
Step 1: Hire a social media manager.
Step 2: Engage a PR agent.
Step 3: Start publishing content everywhere.
Step 4: Hope clarity emerges somewhere around step 7.
I don’t mean this critically. It’s completely understandable.
When you’re building something meaningful, the instinct is to move.
Post something. Launch something. Pitch something. Do something.
Activity feels like progress.
And to be fair, I’ve spent a good part of my career inside those very roles: running PR campaigns, directing marketing teams, producing content calendars, and helping organizations get their message out into the world.
(At various points that included co-founding a couple of PR firms and a creative marketing agency.)
So I have a lot of respect for the craft of amplification.
But there’s a quiet structural problem hidden inside the sequence above.
Amplification without coherence.
In other words: turning up the volume before tuning the instrument.
As Chief Coherence Officer, I spend a lot of time thinking about this moment in a company’s evolution, the point where visibility starts increasing faster than clarity.
That’s when things begin to wobble.
Messaging drifts. Content multiplies. Opportunities appear… but they don’t quite connect.
Not because the team isn’t talented.
But because the story underneath everything hasn’t fully crystallized yet.
And here’s the paradox:
Marketing works best after coherence.
When the message is aligned, when the voice, positioning, and narrative all point in the same direction, amplification becomes incredibly powerful.
The same social media activity suddenly resonates.
The same PR coverage lands differently.
The same audience finally understands what makes the work distinctive.
Not because the tactics changed.
Because the signal became clear.
Think of coherence as the tuning fork of a brand.
Once the tone is right, everything else can harmonize around it.
Without that tone, the orchestra just gets louder.
So if you’re investing energy in visibility right now — which many founders and creators are — it may be worth pausing for one simple question:
Is the message you’re amplifying already the clearest version of your work?
If the answer is yes, wonderful.
If the answer is “almost,” you’re not alone.
Most organizations reach that realization at exactly the moment their marketing starts getting serious.
Which, interestingly enough, is where the work of a CCoO tends to begin.
— Hersh, Chief Coherence Officer