How Duolingo is using its ‘unhinged content’ with Duo the Owl to make people laugh on TikTok

By Kimeko McCoy

Most workdays start with an hour or two of scrolling through social media for 23-year-old Zaria Parvez. But unlike most people, it’s not a bad habit. It’s part of her job.

In her first job out of college, Parvez is one part of the brains behind language-learning platform Duolingo’s TikTok account, which currently has 1.9 million followers — and counting. Those hours she spends scrolling through social media are actually a way for her to do social listening, a key part of her social media strategy before building a report, pitching content ideas and occasionally stepping into the big green owl suit to film as brand mascot, Duo the Owl.

Collectively, it takes up the better part of her workday. Filming TikTok content alone can take anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours, not an easy feat considering the bulky owl suit can be hard to maneuver, she added. Sometimes those TikToks get others in the office involved and most recently, TikTok star Rod Thill (or @Rod on TikTok). Community management is another key element of the social strategy, in which Parvez and her team regularly respond to comments on the brand’s posts as Duo, sometimes with a video. Once, Duo responded to a comment from McDonald’s Canada by taking a dig at the chain’s ice cream machines, which are notoriously broken.

“A lot of brands are just figuring out TikTok, ourselves included,” Parvez said. “This is part of our origin story right now. A lot of it is testing, seeing if something works or [doesn’t] work.”

And seemingly, the big green owl works. Since launching its TikTok presence back in February, Duo, which Parvez says is a sassy and fiercely loyal owl, has landed a number of viral TikToks by riffing off of trending audio clips. In one TikTok, which racked up 1.7 million likes, Duo can be found twerking on an office tabletop in what’s captioned as a “sneak peek at premium content you can only get with Duolingo Plus.” In another, Duo appears to be crying and sliding down the wall Taylor Swift’s “Enchanted” with the lyrics “Please don’t be in love with someone else” in response to people who use Google Translate as opposed to Duolingo’s services. It got 4.6 million likes. Sometimes Duo can be found in the comment section, sassing anyone who forgets their lesson.

After introducing Duo as a regular character in October, Duolingo’s viral content took off, per Parvez. There was an uptick in people reporting they’d discovered the language-learning service via TikTok, something the team learned via a “How did you hear about us” survey and anecdotally on Twitter with “TikTok made me download it” tweets, she added.

It’s not just about the likes. Duo’s antics have humanized the brand, giving a face to Duolingo on TikTok and ultimately caught the attention of NBC News, Insider and even Rolling Stone magazine. The key to the team’s success is that the account is less about selling Duolingo to TikTok …read more

Source:: Digiday