Can TikTok Shop be about more than just shopping?

Can you hear that? No, it’s not sleigh bells ringing—it’s the chime of sales ringing up on a TikTok Shop live-shopping stream.

With the holiday shopping season upon us, TikTok users across the platform are primed to receive plenty of gift-centric marketing messaging, and according to the platform, searches for gift inspiration and related terms have seen a surge. Interest in hashtags like #HolidayDecor, #HolidayGiftIdeas, and #GiftsForWomen has risen 97%, 248%, and 440%, respectively, in month-over-month search growth in September, according to TikTok.

As TikTok Shop preps for its Black Friday Cyber Monday campaign, which is scheduled to run from November 11 through November 30, the platform hosted an event for press and creators in New York centered around the live-shopping strategies that brands like e.l.f. Beauty and sellers like Jewelry Television (JTV) are using for long-term brand-building, not just for driving sales. It’s a striking point of view on the channel, which, since its launch in the US three years ago, is largely viewed as either a discovery tool or a distribution-driven sales platform.

“Live, yes, it can drive revenue, but it can also drive real-time cultural conversation,” Kelly Shah-McDonnell, VP of global connected commerce at e.l.f. Brands, said onstage at the event. “We look at live-selling as an edutainment opportunity.”

Below, we gathered some other insights and advice on what brand marketers are finding works on TikTok Shop, and how some are using the channel to power pieces of their entire marketing engine.

Supply and demand: TikTok Shop gives audiences the chance to discover new brands, build connections, and purchase all in one setting, and for e.l.f. Beauty, that translates to seeing it as “a demand-generation and discovery engine,” Shah-McDonnell said onstage. She emphasized prioritizing products that might resonate in a place where people may not know exactly what they’re looking for yet.

“How we look at TikTok Shop specifically is launching new innovation that surprises and delights our audience,” she said, adding that promotion and discount messaging often takes a back seat to limited-edition and unexpected product releases.

Everything is storytelling: On TikTok Shop, ideally, several elements work together, including the brand’s presence as an actual shop on the platform, the live-shopping streams themselves, and who actually goes live, according to Kelly Pike, VP of multimedia at JTV. She said that when all the pieces work in tandem, impact can extend beyond potentially driving sales.

“This is less about funnel, and more that that is happening at the same time now across all of those arms,” Pike said onstage. “When you’re looking into that with a strategy and leverage that, is when you really see the growth.”

Some brands see other storytelling possibilities. Earlier this year, footwear brand Crocs debuted a TikTok microdrama, Déjà Shoe, which incorporated TikTok Shop product tagging directly into episodes as a way to encourage conversion.

For e.l.f., the kind of storytelling from an affiliate TikTok Shop user or live host may not be possible from a larger influencer, Shah-McDonnell said. Put differently, when a TikTok Shop creator talks about their everyday experience with the brand, there’s a chance consumers might listen more closely.