A good client of Zakazukha’s, Little Green Genie (LGG), recently told the world about their amazing new software that helps offset the emissions created by the world’s billion-plus computers.

The LGG is a program that calculates how much energy is being used by a computer, and then uses this information to buy a proportionate amount of carbon credits to offset this use. Simple but potentially having a dramatic effect on the environment as the manufacture and energy used to run computers creates just as big a carbon footprint as the global airline industry (and we all use a computer).

So apart from working with LGG to craft a newsworthy media release, we also pushed the word out in three ways; a good old fashioned launch with the Hon Kate Jones MP, Queensland Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability (as a newsworthy event), the distribution of the media release to a number of publications and blogs worldwide (as a newsworthy story), and the use of a high profile musician’s Twitter, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, who has one million plus followers.

What ensued was really interesting.

Three media outlets turned up to the event. The Courier Mail posted the story on their website that day. Brisbane Business News is writing an article to appear in this months edition, and the Brisbane Times wrote an article which was published on their website the next day then syndicated to most Fairfax publications around the country including the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Not a bad result.

The media release was sent to a number of the most read publications and blogs worldwide on the premise that it was a decent news story and that international distribution was a bit of a numbers game. So far dozens of publications and blogs have picked it up including USA Today, PC Magazine and La Repubblica (nice to see the story translated into Italian), with many syndicated through blog postings.

The upshot is this media relations campaign has resulted in approximately 1,500 hits on the LGG website, with almost 20 percent signing up to the program.

Chris Cornell tweeted the message to his 1,109,881 followers (thanks Chris) which has resulted in approximately 3,000 hits on the LGG website but zero sign ups.

Now we understand there’s only so much you can say in a tweet, but we would have thought a better response than nothing from Twitter, especially as it resulted in twice the amount of hits than the traditional media relations campaign. Maybe its a rock and roll thing?

Now don’t get us wrong – Zakazukha has no doubt that social media marketing and tools such as Twitter are here to stay and will increasingly play an integral part of any PR campaign – but the exercise says a lot about the power of good information more in-depth than 140 characters.