No-nonsense business advice can be hard to come by so the 23 May edition of The Social was packed with photographers keen to hear straight talk on marketing. Aaron Schuman (photographer, writer and founder of Seesaw magazine) gave a fascinating talk on how images transfer from print to online and back, but it fell to John Wyatt-Clarke (from the photography agency Wyatt Clarke & Jones) to give an exceptionally clear guide to what not to do.

His agency specialises in working with photographers from a fine art or documentary background and promoting them in the advertising world, and he said that generally the photographers who come to see him are doing marketing, it's just not working. "You wouldn't be here if you thought you were doing everything right, so I want to concentrate on why marketing fails," he added, and went on to outline seven basic points:

1. Think about what you’re promoting. Get it straight re what you’re doing, and what your persona is. We get photographers we just can’t work out - step back and think what kind of photographer you are and what you want to be, because it will follow you for the rest of your career. I meet people play-acting out the kind of person they think a photographer is [in advertising] – a loud mouthed wanker who lives on cocaine. If you are a loud-mouthed wanker who lives on cocaine that’s fine, but don’t pretend to be it if you're not.

2. The biggest mistake people make is showing their photographs in silence [to prospective agents or clients]. In no other aspect of life would you show photographs and just shut up – you need to engage with the person you’re talking to. Remember that as a photographer, you have a massive advantage over other makers. For a start, photographs are more interesting than other media. Photographers are people who are curious about the world, but also everyone you talk to is as weird as you – journalists, picture editors and creatives are world leaders in curiosity. It’s easy to engage people like that by telling your story.

3. If you treat social media like a marketing tool for showing your pictures you will turn people off. It’s called ‘social’ media for a reason – it’s a community you need to be a part of it, not a source of punters you can sell to. It’s a place for what marketing people would call 'brand extension', and it can take months to build a rapport. You need to share stories, share interest, share subject matter, and it’s also a place for you to learn more about the market you want to work in. Spamming doesn’t work.

4. Always remember who you’re showing the photographs to. The person looking at your images will have two heads, a good cop and a bad cop, with the good cop thinking how much they love your work and the bad cop thinking ‘Yes, but what can I do with it?’ You need to engage the person but also how you would work with them.

5. Most photographers just show a load of pictures on their website; what you actually need to do is give people a reason to be there. Simon Norfolk’s site is a good example – it's full of contentious talk and argument and ranting, which makes it very entertaining and pretty damn good. I'm sure people stay on his site for longer.

6. Something buzzing around the ad industry at the moment is how to judge whether something is successful. Currently we measure by the number of clicks or friends or likes, but that may not translate into sales. Pepsi did a huge marketing campaign for Pepsi Refresh, putting all their budget into social media. They had print posters, but they all directed the viewer towards social media. They gathered a huge audience, over 4m people ‘like’ their Facebook page now – but Pepsi dropped from second to third place in soft drink sales. The question is, what the hell happened? I don’t have the answer but I suspect that one problem is that we need to talk to people more. We all hate phoning people up and we all hope online marketing will work so we won’t have to do it, but the rejection you face is useful because it can tell you where you’re going wrong.

7. Get a portfolio and tramp the streets with it. I still do it. I think everything looks the same on the internet – if you have a bad image it will look better, and that’s good for you, but if it’s good it’s harder to see. If you get a beautiful print in front of someone, you can stop them in their tracks. The physicality of creating something that exists in the world attaches value to it, whether it’s a box of prints or a fancy pants portfolio. Most people know that already - anyone serious about photography cares about how they present their work – they make the mistake of coming in with chaos [ie a muddled up, ragbag box of prints]. If you’ve only got ten minutes with someone, you need to spend it showing them images not finding them.