A standing room only crowd packed conference rooms Red and Ted last night as Hill Holliday hosted the Boston Social Media Club for an expert panel discussing the role of social media in integrated marketing campaigns.

Entitled “Integrated Social Media Across the Big Brand: The Harmony of Cross-Channel Marketing,” the panel was moderated by Mike Proulx, Hill Holliday’s VP of Interactive Marketing, and featured panelists Terry Lozoff from Street Attack, Sean Corcoran from Forrester Research, Ken Peters from Text 100 PR, Mike Spataro from Visible Technologies, and Vicki Rellas from Mom Central Consulting.

Mike kicked things off with a quick case study of the use of social media for Chili’s P.J. Bland’s campaign. The seamless integration of the campaign across numerous social media platforms as well as offline channels set the tone for the evening’s event. “P.J.” himself was in attendance, as evidenced by a few timely Tweets on the live display.

After introducing the panel, Mike led an engaging discussion on the role of social media in an integrated marketing campaign. Panelists agreed that a social media program has to find a way to live on beyond the cycle of a typical advertising campaign, but acknowledged that there is tremendous value in being able to monitor and react to consumer feedback from social media in real time during the course of an active campaign.

Sean Corcoran of Forrester observed that the measures for success of a social media program must come from the business and marketing objectives, and cautioned against the perils of “shiny object syndrome.” He cited Forrester’s POST methodology — establishing People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology in sequence before launching a campaign — as a vital process for establishing how and where a brand should enter the social media space.

The event wrapped up with audience Q&A, during which Mike Spataro of Visible Technologies stressed the importance of executing an actionable listening program before diving into social media. He cited several insights that his team was able gather for GM from conversations in social media back in 2006 that foreshadowed the current struggles of the US automotive industry.

Thanks again to everyone who came out last night. By all accounts, the event was a tremendous success.

See what people were saying in real time by checking out the live Twitter feed, or browse more photos from the event at the Hill Holliday Flickr stream.