s’ long-term success outside of their sphere of social influence. Mutyala and Kattan both emphasized the importance of building a genuine community with consumers from their social media followings and tapping into technology to stay ahead in the marketing game.  The secrets behind a long-lasting influencer-led brand  During a panel dubbed “Authenticity at scale: Turning influence into brand communities”, Mutyala and Kattan spoke with BeautyMatter’s co-founder and president John Cafarelli and Armaan Mehta, the co-founder of Odore, a platform that helps brands like Coty and L’Oréal build and manage engaged creator communities. Mehta explained that today’s beauty industry relies heavily on brands with authentic voices versus a previous time in which many brands depended on a pay-to-play model of having celebrity endorsements or high marketing budgets sell the product.  “Authenticity today matters more than it did before,” Mehta noted. “Especially considering how the algorithms for platforms like TikTok are prioritizing engagement with people who have previously interacted with a brand.” Mutyala explained that, to a certain extent, she had a built-in consumer base when she first launched her brand in 2018, after launching her YouTube channel in 2015. This was fully intentional on her part as an entrepreneur. “Since I was 16, I was trying to figure out how I wanted to build a beauty brand,” Mutyala recalled. “A lot of investors recommended that I should just launch a product, see what happens and take it from there. But it was really important to me that I create a brand that was built around a community with a shared ideology of feeling left out of the beauty industry. “I started Live Tinted with the idea of connecting people who hadn’t seen themselves represented in beauty. We talked about things that I didn’t see editorial magazines talking about, like colorism and bleach creams. Those conversations really connected people from all different backgrounds.” From these conversations, Mutyala realized there was a white space in the market for color-correcting products for individuals with deeper complexions, which tied into a viral video the YouTuber posted about using red lipstick to mask dark circles.  “People in my community told me that that they didn’t see a solution, so I created it and launched our very first product, the [color-correcting] Huestick, which is still one of our best sellers,” Mutyala said. While having a large following can be an important element in building a brand, Kattan explained that influencers have to dig deep to achieve the “secret sauce” to building a resistant and authentic connection with consumers.  Even though Kattan previously had experience with running a color cosmetics brand, Huda Beauty, with her sisters Alya and Huda Kattan, she realized that experience didn’t directly translate to her own fragrance brand Kayali.  “I thought I could sell a fragrance brand through pretty selfies and lifestyle pictures and that that would help us succeed. But, of course, it didn’t. Fragrances are extremely emotional and you really have to share a story and walk people through a journey and have them envision what they’re going to feel through your product.” After reconsidering what kind of content helps sell fragrance products, like videos explaining how the product connects with certain emotions like love or passion, Kayali ended up thriving via a direct-to-consumer (DTC) site and ultimately became one of Sephora’s best-selling brands.  The power of authenticity for influencer-led brands Retail industry and marketing experts have much to say on the key differences between the influencer-led brands that have enduring longevity versus those that flame out.  As Bethany Paris Ramsay, the founder of beauty marketing and communications firm Honey B, noted, “The beauty industry, as well as consumers themselves, tend to roll their eyes regarding influencer and celeb-founded brands. However, the reality is that these brands are not always bad. For example, both Rhode and Rare Beauty exemplify founders putting the work in to build a true brand beyond just the celeb that’s behind it, which really matters to consumers.” Ramsay observed that founders like Kattan have been able to build genuine and lasting connections with consumers by using behind-the-scenes videos to show how much time and effort they put into formulating highly curated products for their audience.  Ramsay pointed to Mikayla Nogueira as an example of a brand founder and influencer who has tried and failed to authentically engage with consumers.  “The timing of Mikayla Nogueira’s skincare brand Point of View feels late at best,” the beauty marketing expert observed. “From a marketing and brand developer perspective, Nogueira missed her moment for this to truly be something hot. She’s been an influencer who has particularly faced extensive backlash regarding inauthenticity. While her following is still large, the genuine consensus seems to be that the trust is gone… These things matter. “It’s 2025 and there are endless brands to choose from, and we’re in a recession to boot. The vibes are very doom and gloom and consumers are about to be even more protective of their spending dollars. Brands need to feel the pressure to serve up what is being asked for, or they risk their own demise,” Ramsay cautioned.  Similarly, Melissa Minkow, CI&T’s global director of retail strategy, noted, “The stakes are too high to put out products that aren’t quality, because consumers will abandon their favorite influencers, even if they have previously gone to them for reviews, but they themselves put out ‘bad’ products.” The make-or-break factors for an influencer-led brand  Henry Barton, the head of network and community for Duel, a brand advocacy platform helping fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands turn their customers into their biggest acquisition channels, identified several key elements in determining the lasting power of an influencer-led brand, including: Involvement beyond brand launch “Béis works because Shay Mitchell is so deeply involved in each element, from product design to content strategy to partnerships. This matters as consumers today can sniff out vanity projects. Brands succeed when the influencer brings genuine passion, taste and hands-on decision-making, not just their name.” Authentic influencer and product alignment “The combination of the person and the product needs to make sense. For example, Kim Kardashian wouldn’t start a golf brand. If the product doesn’t align with the influencer’s persona or expertise, credibility suffers.” Building a business brand over a personal brand “Building on the previous point, the recognition that the influencer’s name may drive initial traffic, but the brand itself needs to stand on its own because customers buy because they love the brand, This requires strong visual identity, product quality, storytelling and evolving brand voice for the influencer, not just a famous face.” Finding the balance between DTC and retail  “Some influencer brands remain DTC-only and burn out as customer acquisition costs soar but the smart ones enter retail spaces, like Sephora, Ulta Beauty or Nordstrom, when the time is right, adding discovery and legitimacy and collecting customers outside of their follower base.” Knowing their strengths  “As with any business, you simply cannot survive if you have bad logistics, poor inventory management, weak retail execution or any of the other thousand hurdles facing modern brands. Many of the most successful influencer-founded brands partner with experienced operators (or bring in a CEO early) to help them navigate the new and turbulent environment that is modern brand building.” What’s next for the future of influencer-led brands? Many critics, both on the consumer and creator side of things, have dismissed the incorporation of AI as an entirely inauthentic method for creating content.   However, love it or hate it, both Mutyala and Kattan agreed that the experimentation and implementation of AI will be essential in maintaining a brand’s relevance on social media.  Mutyala said she is encouraging her entire team to experiment with AI and “work smart, not harder”. “Regardless of how we feel about it, AI is only going to become more and more important in the future, kind of like how everybody tried to resist social media platforms as an important aspect of marketing. The reality is that AI marks the beginning, and we all need to accept that, embrace it and just try to get as familiar with all the different types of AI out there as you can,” Kattan added. “The sooner you embrace it, the better off you’re going to be.”