“We’re essentially building a sitcom on our platform,” she continued. How do we make it fun in the way that this audience on TikTok wants to have fun? So my task was alright, we’re making it fun. “And our whole marketing team mantra was language learning is hard, so we make it fun. “We’ve always been having fun we have very silly sentences,” she explained, referring to the lessons on the Duolingo app. From day one, she was trusted with spreading the company’s mantra to make language learning more fun. Delivering global software solutionsįor the record, Parvez said the legal team finds Duo’s antics hilarious.

He frequently pokes fun at Duolingo’s legal team having to approve TikToks and he has been known to parade around the Duolingo headquarters in Pennsylvania, pouncing on unsuspecting co-workers for pranks. In typical Gen Z fashion, Duo is a relatable little dude. My task was how do we make it fun in the way that this audience on TikTok wants to have fun?’Īs Duolingo’s TikTok bio says: “Just an owl tryna vibe.” Duo’s ongoing unrequited love for the singer Dua Lipa is particularly entertaining throughout the short social videos, as is his impish disregard for Duolingo’s lawyers. ‘Our whole marketing team mantra was language learning is hard, so we make it fun. Those things include transforming Duo into a cheeky, chaotic character with a uniquely Gen Z sense of humour that’s sometimes a little risqué but nearly always charming. It gives her and her team the “space to be innovative and do cool things”. She has since been able to hire more people, but said the company is still keen to retain its “scrappy” start-up mentality. Until very recently, she had a very tiny team.

For social videos, Parvez is assisted by a colleague who gamely dresses up as Duo. Users of Duolingo already know Duo as the wholesome, if slightly overly persistent, owl that prompts them to keep taking their daily language lessons on the app. Parvez’s tactics seem very simple – short, captioned video clips featuring Duolingo’s mascot, a giant green owl named Duo, getting up to all sorts of crazy things. And I was just tasked with figuring it out – and I guess having a green owl twerk on a conference room table was how I figured it out.” “I saw that as a great opportunity for our brand, and we should be on that platform. “I think it was back in October of 2021, there was this huge announcement that TikTok had hit 1bn monthly active users, and it was just a very big and new thing. dumpy is literally a single mom who works 2 jobs #Duolingo #fgoogletranslate #DuaLipa #Dulapeep #Dualingo #comedy #trend #twerkit_twerkit But it’s TikTok where her tactics have been attracting the most attention. Nowadays, she leads social strategy, creator partnerships and community management across all Duolingo’s major social media platforms. Her job at Duolingo is only her first after graduating university with a marketing degree. It’s no small feat.Īnd it’s partially thanks to Parvez. In a world where brands are falling over themselves to be more relevant to this tricky-to-reach demographic, Duolingo is thriving. That stat may seem relatively inconsequential to a lot of people, but TikTok is the platform of choice for many young people. The savvy, creative and personable young marketing graduate worked hard to take the language learning app to where it’s at today – with 4.5m followers on TikTok. As the social media mastermind behind the twerking Duolingo owl with 4.5m TikTok followers, Zaria Parvez’s job is equal parts hard work and a hoot.Īs someone who just turned 24, loves social media and describes herself as “mission driven to begin with,” it’s no surprise that Zaria Parvez is the person behind Duolingo’s TikTok account.

Duolingo tiktok