The Build-up to Black Friday 2026

TikTok Shop is named in more early Black Friday posts than Amazon, and fashion and shoes get more mentions than electronics. Creator posts that pair a deal with a discount code are getting up to 46x their creator’s usual engagement. And the biggest shopper concern? The great internal debate over whether to buy now or wait.

Meltwater analyzed more than 750,000 posts and around 55 million engagements across social, news and podcasts. The report shows marketing and communications teams which topics, retailers and brands are gaining ground before the sales weekend. Daily posting is up more than 10x since mid-September and is still climbing.

Download the report to explore:

• The categories gaining share compared with 2025, led by fashion and shoes (named in 6.7% of posts, ahead of electronics at 5.5%), gifting and fragrance.
• Retailer and brand rankings, including TikTok Shop’s lead over Amazon (2.7% vs. 2.3% of posts) and which big-box retailers are losing share.
• The creators who beat their own engagement baseline, and the post formats that got them there.
• What worries shoppers, from “should I wait?” to whether a deal is really a deal.
• A week-by-week plan for sharpening your messaging and choosing channels before 27 November.

Use the findings to check your early campaign activity and make better-informed decisions before Black Friday and Cyber Monday.