The coal industry's latest advertising campaign has gone awry on social media but opinions still differ as to its effectiveness.

The #coalisamazing public relations push extolled the virtues of the sector, but was widely ridiculed as it became a trending topic on Twitter.

The Minerals Council of Australia initiative set out to direct people to a website called littleblackrock, but in the process caused quite a social media storm yesterday.

Tim Burrowes, from the media and marketing website Mumbrella, said the campaign began to trend and became the butt of many jokes by Twitter users.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 6 minutes 23 seconds 6 m Tim Burrowes from Mumbrella and Michael Roche from the Queensland Resources Council talk about the coal industry's new campaign ( Arlie Felton-Taylor ) Download 2.9 MB

Loading

Loading

Loading

He said opponents of the coal industry posted their own slogans on social media.

"Coal, you're in the dark without it", "coal, is all you've got for now" and "coal, four more years" were some examples Mr Burrowes gave.

"Everybody is able to have a little bit of fun with it, so probably not what people had in mind when they first created this campaign."

Mr Burrowes said there are inherent risks in every public relations campaign or manoeuvre, but particularly when it was a resource like coal which has an image problem.

"The risk that always brings for any sort of brand is that as soon as you hand the hashtag to the general social media public, you're then losing control," he said.

"Because you're providing them with a point to organise around which you no longer have control of."

But the campaign has had strong support from the coal industry itself at a time when exports from Queensland have hit record levels.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche said despite falling prices they had already exported 37.5 million tonnes of coal in July and August.

Mr Roche said the campaign highlights the fact that it is a top earning sector by keeping coal in the conversation.

"Well what we know is that people are talking about it, we're talking about it, it was always going to create interest, it was a bit different, a bit quirky," he said.

"But it was about getting people to talk about some of the qualities of coal around the economy, around emissions, and exports and jobs."

The media campaign #coalisamazing was launched the same day radio broadcaster Alan Jones, formerly of Acland in southern Queensland, fronted another campaign against the coal industry.

Mr Jones' campaign is a crowd-funded one and is specifically urging people to act to stop the Commonwealth Government from removing a section of legislation in environmental law.

It is understood to have already aired on television this week.