Community Management Masterclass: Protecting Your Brand on Social Media in the Age of AI

This webinar is designed for social media managers, marketing teams, brand leaders, agencies, community managers, PR professionals, and anyone responsible for managing or protecting a brand’s social media presence.

This webinar is for social media managers, community managers, marketing teams, brand leaders, and anyone responsible for managing customer engagement on social platforms. Whether you're scaling a startup or managing comments for a major brand, this masterclass shows you how to protect your community while building genuine relationships with your audience.

The webinar runs approximately 60 minutes, including expert presentations, real case studies (McDonald's, American Eagle, Virgin Voyages), audience polls, and a live Q&A session.

Absolutely. Comment management is a universal challenge regardless of brand size. Smaller brands often have the advantage of being able to build tighter, more authentic communities with direct founder or team engagement. The strategies discussed apply equally to startups and enterprises—it's about prioritizing authentic conversations over vanity metrics.

The webinar features three experts: Elior Doani (Creative Marketing Manager at Spikerz), moderating the discussion; Paige Schmidt (Community Expert with 5 years in social media), bringing the community building perspective; Tom Miner (Social Media and Community Agency Owner, Author of "Social First Brands"), covering strategic community management; and Naveh Ben Dror (CEO and Co-founder of Spikerz), providing the security and AI moderation perspective. Together, they cover community building, authentic engagement, brand voice, and protecting your comments at scale.

The webinar covers why brands underestimate their comment sections, the difference between treating comments as engagement metrics versus community metrics, how to respond authentically as a brand, managing toxic comments and spam, AI-generated comments and deepfakes, comment moderation strategies (manual vs. AI vs. hybrid), building customer loyalty through comments, using comments as product feedback, and protecting your audience from scammers and impersonators.

You'll see examples including McDonald's CEO tasting test that sparked viral reactions, how Burger King, Wendy's, and A&W responded strategically, American Eagle's campaign that sparked unintended conversation about fascism, Virgin Voyages' failed crisis response to a cruise redirection, and multiple examples of how brands either win or lose in their comment sections.

AI has made it easier for attackers to flood comments with bots, deepfakes, and scams at scale. Approximately 30% of online conversations are now bot-driven. Platforms label AI-generated content but not AI-generated accounts, so one bot can create unlimited fake comments. This makes comment sections harder to manage but also creates opportunity for brands using AI defensively to detect and remove harmful content.

If your comment section is full of abuse, hate, and negativity, potential customers will see that and choose not to buy. People research brands on social media before purchasing. Toxic comments also create space for scammers to impersonate your brand with fake support accounts, which can defraud customers. You become liable for the damage if your account is compromised and used to scam people.

There are two costs: the cost of managing comments (manual time or AI tool subscription) and the cost of not managing them (lost customers, brand damage, liability). AI tools cost significantly less than hiring full-time moderators while providing 10x better accuracy because AI understands context instantly. Beyond cost savings, comment moderation protects brand reputation and enables your team to spend time on meaningful engagement rather than endless deletion. For every dollar spent on AI moderation, you protect far more in brand equity and prevent customer loss.