The creator economy is booming. According to reports, the market value was $250 billion in 2023. During the Glossy+ research presentation on May 14, Glossy editor-in-chief Jill Manoff and senior researcher Dania Gutierrez spoke with Dr. Muneeb Shah, a board-certified dermatologist, influencer (18.1 million TikTok followers) and founder of clinically backed skin-care line Remedy, about how founders and content creators can capitalize on the moment.
Excerpts from the discussion have been lightly edited for clarity.
Dr. Shah’s approach to partnering with brands
“Selecting a brand partner is a very tough decision. [As a dermatologist], I’m very selective and have my own criteria when considering which brands I want to work with — everyone’s ethos on that is going to be different. For me, I don’t do fragrance, I do affordable products, and I work with the same brands that I’ve worked with the last four years. … I have the platform because I wear scrubs and put on a white coat, and I represent myself as a dermatologist on social media. If I did something that didn’t align with the ethos of what a dermatologist would recommend in the office, then, to me, that would be a misrepresentation. I’m taking the benefits of the scrubs and the white coat but not taking the limitations of what that would mean, which means turning down the brand sponsorships of things you wouldn’t recommend to your patients. For me, it’s quite simple: If my mom asks me, ‘Should I buy this product?’ would I say yes or no? If I say yes, then I probably take the brand deal, and that normally takes in all of those other factors [I value], which are price, ingredients, availability and what the brand stands for overall.”
Cracking TikTok Shop as a brand founder
“TikTok Shop peaked during Black Friday. … What was happening during that time was that TikTok was basically subsidizing Shop … giving consumers deals that TikTok was paying for, and brands were still getting their full ticket. TikTok also wasn’t taking any percentage — now they’re taking 8%. … If you were brand that could participate in that early on, you made out like a bandit. It doesn’t work that way anymore. Now, you have to create a marketing flywheel to break through the noise on TikTok Shop more than ever. … If you talk to a lot of brand founders, they’ll tell you it’s difficult to recapture somebody who buys something on TikTok Shop and turn them into a lifetime customer because you don’t have their email addresses. The way that they get pushed into the backend of Shopify is through a TikTok email address that’s codified. … That’s a killer for your lifetime value customer because you can never find them again and you can never retarget those customers. … It’s not a winning proposition unless you can recapture that audience. … But I’m not writing off the idea of live shopping content.”
The male beauty opportunity
“There’s a huge opportunity to crack the male audience because they are interested in skin care, they just don’t know where to start. A lot of what brands [think] is, ‘If I can just put this in black packaging or if I can put this in grey packaging or use a masculine public figure, then maybe that’s going to speak their language.’ But for me, it’s more so speaking to what their needs are and what’s going to fit into their lifestyle. … There is this wave of guys who are interested, but you’re not going to crack them with a 10-step skin-care routine — you might get them to use one product for a good reason. It’s about speaking their language and meeting them where they are.”
Plus, watch the full video below.
