How Duolingo Rewrote The Rules of Brand Engagement

Social media is often thought of as just a tool for brand awareness – but the truth is that it can also be a driver of real business results.

Few companies exemplify this better than Duolingo, the world’s most popular language learning app, which has amassed more than 28 million followers across all of its social media channels. On TikTok alone, Duolingo boasts over 16 million followers, and its antics on the platform serve as a masterclass on the art (and science!) of keeping audiences engaged and entertained, while also growing your business.

The success Duolingo has seen on social media hasn’t come from simply following a playbook though – it’s come from rewriting it. And at the center of this evolution is Zaria Parvez, who started out at Duolingo as a Social Media Coordinator in 2020, and is now its Senior Global Social Media Manager.

Speaking to Inc. Arabia on the sidelines of Web Summit Qatar 2025, Parvez offered a glimpse into how Duolingo’s once-ordinary social media presence turned into a pop culture phenomenon – and redefined brand engagement in the process.

Zaria Parvez, Senior Global Social Media Manager, Duolingo. 

It’s perhaps important to start by noting that before it became a viral sensation (and before Parvez joined the company), Duolingo’s social media presence was, well, just another brand account. “We had Instagram, we had Twitter, but it wasn’t anything remarkable,” Parvez admits. “It was kind of what you’d expect from a language learning app.” But things began to change after Parvez and her team saw how TikTok was growing in popularity as a social media platform, and then noting that Duolingo wasn’t really doing anything there. “At the time, TikTok had one billion monthly active users in the US,” Parvez recalls. “And so we thought, if they’re on that app, they’re not on ours – so, how do we hijack the conversation?”

An answer came in the form of Duo, Duolingo’s green owl mascot, which Parvez reshaped from being a human resources plaything into the bona fide internet sensation he is today. By giving Duo a personality and building entire storylines around him, Parvez and her team transformed the brand’s social media presence into something that felt less like corporate marketing, and more like genuinely good entertainment. “The strategy is really about seeing the whole thing as a sitcom,” Parvez explained. “Every piece of content we put out, that’s an episode in the sitcom. So, we have people fall in love with a character, or they hate a character, and so, for us, it’s about how we lean into that, and build on these narratives.”

This mindset was on full display when Duolingo announced Duo’s “death” in February, a stunt that triggered a storm of online reactions, which was then followed by the owl’s “resurrection.” But the idea for it all came from Parvez and her team noticing that Duolingo app users often mocked their “spokes-owl” for its relentless reminders to complete lessons. “So, we were like, what if we just ‘killed’ him?” Parvez laughed. “How would people react to that news? And it obviously shook up the internet in a way we did not anticipate, but I guess you don’t know you’re famous till you die!” However, Duo wasn’t “killed” for shock value alone – his “death” also saw Duolingo unveiling a site where users could take their language lessons and then use the experience points (XP) gained from them to help resurrect the owl. “We actually had a worldwide effort, with people around the globe completing their lessons to bring Duo back,” Parvez revealed. “I think it got over 30 billion XP – so, we saw a huge uptick in people using the app just from this campaign.”

The takeaway from all of this? Viral moments are good, but they’re better when they serve a deeper business goal. And according to Parvez, most companies underestimate the impact social can have on revenue. “And knowing how to optimize social in a way that consumers will actually convert is really crucial,” she adds. “Something I always talk about is that a lot of times, people hire social teams, and then try to dictate how they do their jobs. And I always say, when you hire an engineer, you don’t stop them from coding – so, why are you stopping a social team from doing what they know works? One of my favorite quotes is that ‘fear is expensive.’ So, if you’re scared to fully lean in, you’re losing out on direct business impact. So, finding the right social content people for your brand, and then trusting them to do what they do best, actually leads to results. Otherwise, it’s literally money on the table that you’re missing out on, if you’re not looking into it.”

The Duolingo team.

Keeping all of this in mind, Inc. Arabia asked Parvez to share a roadmap for brands seeking to step up their social media game, and for starters, she suggested just going for it. “You shouldn’t come in with a full strategy,” Parvez said. “A lot of it is that you iterate as you go.” She also noted that it helps to understand what you, as a consumer, would engage with, and then to create content accordingly. Plus, moving fast is key, Parvez said. “One of the biggest things we’ve built at Duolingo is our premise that there should be minimal time from ideation to post,” she said. “So, the team works fast, and we optimize on working fast.” She went on to reveal that Duolingo has “a high-risk approval channel,” in the sense that no proposal sits for more than a day; plus, the company has hired a third party to mediate between the social team’s creative vision and the leadership’s corporate expectations, with that external insight helping to remove any subjectivity from making decisions on content.

Now, having heard what Parvez had to say, and seeing the success she and her team have had on social media, one can think that the way to go about it all is to simply attempt to replicate what Duolingo is doing. But Parvez warned against such an approach. “Don’t try to be like anyone else that’s successful,” she urged. “I think on social, people can smell inauthenticity out really fast; so, really owning your own space, leaning into it, and developing it will make you far more successful than trying to copy somebody else.” This would take time, of course, but Parvez pointed out that is simply how good work is done in this domain. “Creativity just ebbs and flows, and building that into your systems of how you create content is important,” she said. “There are weeks at Duolingo where we’re releasing six or seven videos, and there are weeks where we’ll have nothing. Understanding that this is okay, that you don’t need to have a set calendar of set things every single time, and to just reflect the human experience of creativity, is important.” People generally tend to pick up on this, Parvez pointed out – as she put it: “Content usually starts to perform better when you’re actually inspired!”

Pictured in the lead image is Zaria Parvez, Senior Global Social Media Manager, Duolingo. All images courtesy of Duolingo.

This article first appeared in the March issue of Inc. Arabia magazine. To read the full issue online, click here.