“The increasing popularity of Live Video content and the momentum around Live Shopping experiences highlights just how important social media is as a revenue generation tool,” Socialbakers wrote.

Directly shoppable media, including livestreams, are forecast by the Interactive Advertising Bureau to become one of the fastest-growing advertising categories in the near future amid the emergence of a “storeless economy” the industry group says notched $120 billion in global sales last year. The desire to blend commerce and content — particularly when targeting smartphone-savvy young shoppers — manifested in several ways around the holidays.

Walmart, for instance, deployed a first-of-its-kind TikTok livestream that let viewers tap on products shown in the video and check out without having to exit the app. Walmart’s hour-long activation centered on popular creators, including Michael Le, pointing to the power of online personalities in winning over customers.

Yet, traditional influencer marketing, especially #ad sponsored posts, continued to slide in Q4, suggesting marketers have retooled how they leverage internet stars in their marketing campaigns. Socialbakers said the number of brands working with influencers who have a following of at least 100,000 was almost level with pre-pandemic numbers, suggesting the channel has not felt the windfall. The relative stasis could be a sign that brands opted to work more with influencers who have smaller audiences in recent months, Socialbakers said.