The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 34 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Duolingo's real competitors are TikTok and social media, not Babbel
“And I'm a firm believer, and I know our CEO said this too, that I don't think like Babbel or Rosetta Stone or other language learning places are our actual competitors. Like our real competitors are like TikTok. And other social media platforms that are like t…”
Duolingo's viral TikTok strategy would not have succeeded with remote work
“I don't think so. And I say that as someone who is a homebody and loves being remote, but like, it's honestly like having even, I mean, if you have a suit, maybe, but having the suit and just the random quirkiness and the thing, like the things around our work…”
Duolingo's TikTok strategy operates like a sitcom with ongoing storylines
“I always say our TikTok is like a sitcom. Everything we put out there is an episode. Some are amazing and go super viral. Some are just there to build the storylines, but it's something that can live and function as short form video content, even if it was to …”
Duolingo ignores agency backgrounds when hiring social media talent
“When we're hiring for our teams, for example, like I don't really care about your advertising experience. I don't really care about like what agencies you worked at. I care more about if I give you like a concept, can you find a trending audio? Tell me what to…”
Crossing creative boundaries is necessary to discover where the lines exist
“Candidly, like, I've commented on something that I probably shouldn't have before, and I got checked and balanced for that, and it was one of the biggest learning moments where, like, if I didn't cross the line, I wouldn't have known where the line was”
95% of Duolingo's TikTok impressions are completely organic
“Candidly, most I would say about 95% of our impressions are completely organic and they're for the cost of like maybe duo's costume and like the sushi I had for dinner while like filming and like staying late a little bit.”
Duolingo's TikTok failed with an agency until an internal team took over
“When we first launched our TikTok, we hired an agency to work with us. Before I was kind of in the weeds, like I was just kind of like observing or whatever, and the content didn't hit. And it wasn't until an internal team like me took over that it started to …”
Troublemakers drive major cultural shifts in brand social media
“Troublemakers are the ones that are causing seismic cultural shifts. Like I believe they're the ones that press the red button when most of us are too scared to press it ourselves.”
Intersectional backgrounds are the best source for creative boundary-pushers
“And I would also say troublemakers, if you're looking for an easy pool to start of people who are pressing these red buttons, who are testing boundaries is people with intersectional backgrounds.”
Duolingo's TikTok views drive app downloads rather than cross-platform followers
“We haven't seen direct correlation, if I'm being honest. I would say more of, like, a one million view thing on TikTok might, would actually have more correlation with, like, app downloads but it kind of stays within its own little realm.”
Duolingo social lead Zaria Parvez has no ambition to become a CMO
“I personally have no ambitions of being a CMO or, like, going higher.”
Duolingo's TikTok succeeded because Parvez lacked traditional advertising experience
“I always say the reason why our TikTok was so successful is because I didn't really know all that much about advertising, if I'm being honest.”
Small human moments were key to Duolingo's viral TikTok growth
“No brand was doing it yet. And I think that was kind of our insight. And it was like these small human moments that I think has made our TikTok kind of blow up.”
TikTok videos fail without a punchy five-second creative hook
“If you're not a creative writer and you don't know how to make something punchy in five seconds, even if you have a trending audio, it's not going to do well.”
Copying existing trends is the best way to launch on TikTok
“The best way to start Is to steal like an artist. And I say that because a lot of TikTok is like copying each other. Like that is the truth of it. When we first started, these trends were us just copying what we see and obviously giving credit where it's due, …”
Social media audiences will figure out brand lore if entertained
“And I think it's trusting that our consumers are much smarter than we think they are. And even if we make them dive in deep, like, they can figure it out. They'll scroll back if they want to scroll back. If it's entertaining enough, people will figure it out.”
A brand's social media comment section is its best creative brief
“The comment section is your social brief. Like, People will say stuff, like, lean into that. Like, if they're telling you they want to see X, Y, Z, give them X, Y, Z, and it can be that simple”
Content that goes viral on TikTok often fails on YouTube Shorts
“A lot of things that break the internet and trend on TikTok don't do well on shorts.”
Brand content is only good enough if shareable in personal group chats
“And if I didn't work at Duolingo and if I didn't give a crap about brands, would I want to post this in my group chat? And that's kind of my litmus test of like, is this entertaining or good enough?”
Brands need a one-sentence North Star for content evaluation
“I'm very adamant about having, like, one or two sentences of what you know you're doing, so that just becomes, like, the, like, the North Star for every single piece of content you put out there, because it makes things just easier.”
Duolingo maintains omnipresence on social media to reflect its mascot's lore
“Because Duo is everywhere, and we want Duo to be everywhere, reminding you to do your lesson, then I'm going to be on every platform as much as I can to my best ability.”
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn accepts pushback on video removal requests
“He does DM me and there's these open conversations and he's open to hearing pushback as well. There's been times where he's told us to take down a video and I was like, okay, cool. But what if I like change the audio, fix up the text a little bit, can I repost…”
Duolingo's viral TikTok videos directly drive user acquisition
“So if we have a viral video, we'll actually see an uptick in users. Based off the timing of it and people saying, yeah, we heard about you from TikTok.”
Duolingo rarely deletes underperforming social media posts
“I think it's, if it's been, like, really freaking bad, then yeah, but also, I think it's more of, like, a judgment on that, but not, not usually. We kind of just keep it up.”
Cultural moments drive far more social impact than scheduled programming
“Cultural moments has had way more impact than, like, regular scheduled programming, and we really try to adjust for that too.”
Duolingo never plans its social media content more than two weeks out
“So we never really plan more than like two weeks out and even two weeks is like a bit of a stretch”
Duolingo is currently going through a rough patch with content performance
“Right now we're kind of at a rough patch, like with our content, like we're trying to figure out how to like go on YouTube shorts, how to make things viral”
Pair viral 'candy' hooks with brand 'medicine' in captions
“The strategy that I love to call candy to the medicine, where essentially the candy is going to be the Dua Lipa thirst trap, but the medicine, you might find it in the comment section. You might find it in the caption of us being like, doing, mentioning someth…”
Duolingo posted standard corporate content for a year before its viral shift
“I started off For a whole year of just doing normal, like happy Earth Day posts and things you'd expect a language learning app to do. And it wasn't until a little bit later that we started taking more risks and creating the content we do now.”
Duolingo cross-posts 75% of its TikTok content directly to Instagram Reels
“I would say at this rate of where we are, I would say about 75% is rip and replace. And what the other 25% is us trying to actually think through, like, what would work better on Reels versus TikTok.”
Duolingo sets one million views as its benchmark for TikTok success
“One million views for us is like a viral video that is successful. That is what is like written down as like green check.”
Running Duolingo's viral TikTok is Zaria Parvez's first job out of college
“And this is my first job out of college.”
Google and Microsoft rejected Zaria Parvez's job applications out of college
“I've been rejected from big brands for jobs and I was applying out of college because I, my resume, I can send it to you after this, but it's definitely not a traditional resume. It's very different. It's very, it's unhinged. And my whole like life mantra was …”