Learn the Language: How Duolingo Conquered TikTok

Duolingo, the education app designed to teach people new languages, wants you to also use another app: TikTok. The creative minds behind the brand have mastered using the social video platform to grow brand awareness and advocacy with viral videos that capture views — and new users.

Don’t believe us? Consider this: In just a matter of months, Duolingo went from 100,000 TikTok followers to more than 2 million; plus, they were able to do so with virtually no production costs.

We recently spoke to Zaria Parvez, the company’s global social media manager who is credited as the Gen Z genius behind Duolingo’s TikTok strategy. On top of recounting how Duolingo was able to capture an entire platform with an iPhone, a mascot, and the right vision, Parvez also shared what smaller businesses can do to gain traction on the platform.

b. Newsletter: How did you come up with the Duolingo mascot as the face of your TikTok persona that took off back in 2021? What’s the story there?

Zaria Parvez: The green owl has always been Duolingo’s brand mascot. The suit was originally used for college recruitment events. It wasn’t until we returned to the office in September 2021 that I saw it in the office and had the idea to use it and the Duo character in our TikTok videos.

The marketing and branding team developed the mascot into more of a character a few years ago. They saw the memes around Duo threatening people to do their lessons across other social platforms like YouTube and Twitter, so we leaned into the jokes and had fun with it. Since then, my job has been to bring that same quirky persona to TikTok with the mascot suit and push the envelope on how we show up on different platforms.

b.: Why do you think your videos have trended and resonated so well with the TikTok community? What is it about your approach to TikTok that makes the campaign so successful?

Parvez: The key to our success is that we are just entertaining on TikTok. We never try to explicitly sell our product. Sometimes this can feel counterintuitive to the more traditional marketing channels, but it really works.

b.: What are TikTokers looking for? Duolingo, Ryanair, The Washington Post, and other brands seem to connect to people with fun, witty, and organic content, as opposed to informative, educational content. What’s the common thread?

Parvez: People on TikTok are mainly looking to be entertained. Whenever we post content from our account, we always think: Is this something we’d want to watch if we didn’t work at Duolingo? Holding yourself to this high standard helps create engaging content that isn’t always product first (even though we all love our logo!).

b.: What are some actionable strategies businesses can implement to do well on TikTok? Virality is kind of a weird thing that’s hard to predict, so what can businesses do to put themselves in a good position to resonate with TikTokers?

Parvez: Most brands on TikTok are trying to reach Gen Z. The biggest advice I have is to hire someone from whatever demographic you’re trying to reach to actually make the content for you. Empowering them to create content with minimal layers of edits will enable them to go viral. One of the biggest challenges brands face is their inability to let go of tight control and trust younger talent who are native to these new, growing social platforms.

b.: What’s the key to long-term success? Do you catch on to other TikTok or social media trends and try new things, or do you stick to what has worked best in the past?

Parvez: At Duolingo, we have insights or “North Stars” that guide our content and allow us to have a standard across changing trends. Our brand insight is that language learning is hard, so we make it fun. Our audience insight is Gen Z wants to be entertained, not sold to.

When we have these two insights as our foundation, we tend to chase ideas and not trends. Strong ideas stand the test of time and can be applied across multiple changing trends. So in short, we do both: Because we know what works best, we’re able to apply the same canon across different trends.

b.: The Duo team responds to A LOT of comments. It’s really refreshing (and fun) to see a team so committed to interacting with its community. What are some other ways you interact with users on TikTok, and how important is it for small businesses to directly engage their community members?

Parvez: We’ve found community management to be our primary way of connecting with users and creating community-driven content that performs well. We’re firm believers in giving the people what they want. Often, people will say things like, “It would be really cool if…” and we make those ideas a reality.

For example, many people joke around online that Duo kidnaps those who don’t do their lesson, so we made an entire video around that concept. It ended up with 17.5 million free, organic views on TikTok. It is so important to directly engage with community members because it truly gives you a good check on what content people want to see and what can eventually drive growth. After we post our own content, we try to stay online for at least 15 minutes after responding to our fans to build buzz and brand love.

b.: What else should readers know about TikTok branding or what Duo is up to in its quest to share languages with the world?

Parvez: One of the biggest drivers of our TikTok growth was listening to our community and understanding how they use social media. Although we’d love for them to always think about language learning when they log on to TikTok, they don’t. We found that if our learners were using social media to talk about anything remotely having to do with language learning, it had to be entertaining content, not just getting them to open the Duolingo app. Remember: Your comment section is your social brief. Let your audience tell you what they want from you and make that a reality!

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