“I have my life savings in Landsbanki Guernsey - a 5 year bond. Have I and all other savers lost everything? Is there any action we can take or are advised to take?”

This was the plea from an angry saver who had lost money in the recent debacle over the collapse of Icelandic banking system. After being given the brush off by the authorities in Guernsey he turned to the forum on Moneysupermarket to see if anyone else was in the same boat. Luckily there were hundreds of people on the site who were. You’ll see from the posting that there were hundreds of posts in the conversation started last week.

As a result they have formed an action group and are organising a mass petition. Technology is taking us back to the good old days when communities rallied round and helped each other. The web makes it easier for us to find people with similar interests or concerns, or people who have expertise that we might need. There’ll be plenty more folks who will need their community in the months to come.

And, on the topic of Peter Mandelson’s return to Government, it wasn’t long before the knives were out.

Already, the Tories are accusing the new business minister of stage managing his return to the department, with hooting supporters suitably placed for maximum effect. Of course Mandelson denied it, but the Prince of Darkness, architect of SPIN, will be a difficult reputation to shift.

SPIN - that concept feels like it belongs to the era when the Milennium Dome seemed like a great idea. Yet it’s become part of the lexicon, to the point where I hear people in companies talking about how they’d like to “spin it” this way or that. Maybe they don’t mean “spin” in its purest sense; but it’s still a dangerous place from which to start your communications campaign.

The Oxford Dictionary defines spin, rather politely, as “a favourable bias given to a news story”. Journalist and broadcast, Andrew Marr, was somewhat more blunt, calling it “Evasion, truth-shaving, manipulation, bullying.”

Whether you’re pushing a sexed-up WMD dossier to justify invading a country, or a new product launch, spin is best avoided. Resorting to it would suggest a cover up of something that won’t withstand scrutiny. Unfortunately, there is always someone willing to scrutinise and find you out,  which risks harming your reputation.

And today, with the spread of social media, it gives voice to many, many more people scrutinising and - potentially - lampooning your claims in cyberspace forums and blogs, which have a habit of showing up in Google searches.

Mandelson might be back, but some of the tactics he pioneered should be confined to history. Let DJs do the spinning.

I am often asked how to engage with forum users and the power of them. As with all media (new and old) certain forums are more influential than others based on their subject matter, usefulness and the strength of bond between users - just like any community, geographic or otherwise.

In my day job I am often using our software to run social media audits in order to present a picture of influence amongst audiences that a brand may be trying to reach. It’s interesting that whether the topic be ‘green motoring’ or ‘gap year travel’, the algorithms are bringing the same forums regardless of their perceived niche.

Sites like Moneysavingexpert and Moneysupermarket are associated with financial services whilst DigitalSpy was originally launched for discussion about cable TV. However, their forums  are coming up as highly influential in so many areas way, way outside of these initial subjects.

Why? Well just like any community - your street, your football club, trade union, church, if you have lots of people that meet regularly, help each other out all the time and start to really trust each other then they will tell their friends who will tell their friends and the community will start to grow. Then there will be people in the church or football team who travel a lot, know about marketing or who study politics or indeed anything that you might want advice on. Then niche discussions start and the community gets ever more useful.   

Check out the general discussions area of DigitalSpy, look at how many people have viewed each topic, how many people have posted on each topic and how many topics those people have posted on. Then look at this post about Madeleine McCann. Over 2 million views - that’s more than the readership of some national newspapers!

So it’s no surprise that so many organisations are asking their PR advisers how they can engage here. It can be done badly or done well.

Rather than me telling you how to do it, I thought you might want to watch/listen to the forum editor of MoneySupermarket.