Top of Depops
There’s a lot that digital journalists can learn from Depop’s top sellers.
With over 15 million users in 147 different countries, Depop has boomed throughout the pandemic.
Depop is a social “fashion marketplace app”, encouraging greater sustainability in fashion as well as ‘selling and connecting’ between users, 90% of whom are under 25.
Depop is an interesting hybrid of selling platform and social channel. Its visual interface —using tiled images for users’ profiles— looks a lot like Instagram’s, whilst sellers are encouraged to connect with its inbuilt direct messaging function.
The similarities with social media are not surprising. Depop began life as a social network, before it was reworked as a marketplace. As their website puts it, Depop is now “a mobile space where you can see what your friends and the people you’re inspired by are liking, buying and selling.”
How does this link to digital journalism? Successful sellers on Depop rely on good search rankings, following the same principles as digital journalists to achieve this. And social media, after all, is a digital journalist’s bread and butter.
Here are five things digital journalists can learn from Depop’s top sellers.
1. Interact with other users
Depop’s handbook for sellers says that good communication is important throughout the process of selling, from responding quickly to enquiries, letting buyers know their order has been shipped, leaving reviews and following up. This, they advise, is “good for building relationships.”
But success on Depop goes beyond this. Using the platform like social media can increase sellers’ reviews and search rankings.
As digital journalists, we also care about engagement. Interactions with our work on social media are what helps it get seen. Having more followers equals greater exposure for our writing. We Interhactives were advised to ‘lurk, like and retweet’ on social media – showing you’re listening and getting your name out there.
2. Pay attention to the algorithm
The algorithm —whether Depop’s or Google’s— is the fateful overlord of both the Depop seller and the digital journalist, determining how and when our work is seen.
Thankfully, it doesn’t work at random. But understanding the algorithm and building that understanding into our work is key.
Both Depop and Google offer some transparency as to how their algorithms work – and both have shifted in the same direction to favour quality content above recency. This year, Depop changed its algorithm to prioritise ‘relevant, clear listings from shops that stick to the rules and have positive feedback’ – a.k.a. page authority.
This is also how Google’s algorithm, which is regularly updated, works. Its 2011 Panda update, for example, assigned a ‘quality score’ to web pages based on page structure, engagement, domain authority, knowledgeable content and article length.
Depop seller Evie (@eviehallows) is 19 and left her job in retail to become a full-time Depop seller at the end of 2019. She says that good reviews —which give a Depop shop its authority— are “insanely important…not only because it encourages new buyers but because I like to maintain the highest standards for my shop.”
Just as for Evie, it’s important to pay attention to where traffic is coming from, how search engines work, and to incorporate this into our writing. As the old saying goes, you either play the algorithm – or it plays you.
3. Scheduling
For both Depop sellers and digital journalists, it’s important to post content when your audience will see it – namely, when they’re online.
Depop encourages sellers to learn about peak times and monitor activity after uploading to learn when the optimum times to post are – advice that translates directly to digital journalists.
Evie, who has over 13,000 followers and has made more than 1000 sales since going full-time, says that for her, 6-9pm is the best time to post as those are “peak times for people to be using the app.” She adds: “posting on specific days or doing ‘drops’ can be really useful” too. Digital journalists take note: awareness of an audience’s habits is important.
Not only this, but Depop suggests making a calendar of upcoming events and anticipating buyers’ future needs. This advice could come straight out of a journalist’s notebook: planning and scheduling content ahead of time are fundamentals.
4. Update posts
Evie says she refreshes her posts on Depop at least once a week – she’d do it more, but with over 250 items on sale, this is the most she can manage.
Depop advises that updating the item description and images to keep them up to date with seasonal trends can “help get your items more exposure”.
Digital journalists also need to update articles to keep them relevant. If older articles are continuing to get traffic, follow Depop’s advice: update them, ensure they’re still pertinent and ride that wave of exposure. As a rule of thumb, about 30% of the article should be changed in an update.
5. Choose strong images and descriptions
This is two points disguised as one. Depop advises sellers to write detailed descriptions of items. “The more we know about your item, the more likely it is to be surfaced in search results and suggested items.” They also suggest using hashtags in posts, which function like keywords for digital journalists – these are ideas and topics which define what your content is about. They’re also the words and phrases that searchers enter, called ‘search queries’.
As Interhactives, we were advised to sprinkle keywords throughout our writing, especially in the first 30 words of the story and in the URL itself. Detail is also good: an evergreen story works best if it is between 600-1000 words.
Depop suggests using all four available image slots on the app, as well as a video. These should be accompanied by an accurate description. In an article, do not neglect images and alt-text (image descriptions) which improve the accessibility of your site, make it more inclusive and are, ultimately, a signal of quality to the search engine, helping you appear higher in search.
For Evie, turning to Depop full-time has harnessed her creativity. She says her number one tip on Depop is “above all being yourself. It really communicates into your shop when you love what you do and people can see the passion.”
I like to consider this a more holistic tip for digital journalists: write about what you’re interested in.