Of all the advice given by five panelists at the digiday:SOCIAL conference in Los Angeles today about  movie campaigns, none was clearer than a pearl of wisdom from Paul Beck, executive vice president of worldwide marketing at Illumination Entertainment.

"No amount of social media is going to make a bad movie good," said Beck, whose company created the computer-animated 3D film "Despicable Me" being released through Universal Pictures in July.

Film quality is one of the factors marketing professionals can leverage to create social media campaigns within an entertainment industry where executives need prodding to spend money outside of traditional forms of advertising such as television and billboards, the panelists said. For instance, Beck and fellow panelist Doug Neil, senior vice president of digital at Universal Pictures, recently screened the approximately 70% of "Despicable Me" that had been completed to a group of blogging mothers in Houston and encouraged them to write posts about the Steve Carell-starring film in an effort to generate buzz.

"It's about getting those advocates to be out there saying, 'You've got to see this movie,'" said Beck.

Additionally, studios are missing opportunities by simply posting film clips on Facebook because they're forgoing the value of getting potential fans involved in the opinion process, said Jon Siegal, founder and chief executive officer of marketing applications creator Fan Appz.

"It's about building a conversation," said Siegal, who said page views for one movie campaign jumped sevenfold when he added a feature that allowed viewers to participate in a poll about the film. "The fans want to feel like they're part of the media experience."

Of course, nothing builds advocacy like an out-of-nowhere good movie, said Neil, who spoke about the social buzz that propelled microbudget thriller "Paranormal Activity" to $184 million in global box office sales after its theatrical release last year.

"Is that scalable? I think, no," said Neil. "That was magic that happened as a result of a lot of factors."