how Duolingo became a social media craze

Just over two years in Brazil, Duolingo already has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, more than a million on TikTok, more than 180,000 on Instagram

If before the market valued serious and sober tones in its campaigns, humor is currently the king of advertising pieces. Memes and jokes are used as a strategy for the brand to be part of the current affairs and get closer to its customers.

Along with the increase in humor in campaigns, the so-called “impersonation of brands” has also become common, either digitally, as is the case with digital personas, or even using mascots, such as the Canarinho Pistola, of the Brazilian national team. In the case of Duolingo, both things are used.

The brand’s famous little green owl, called Duo, took on an important role in the brand’s digital strategies, participating in the memes of the moment and taking on some of the characteristics that the public itself imposes, such as the case of “insistence”.

“By embracing memes, with an adaptation to our tone of voice, we have students who recognize themselves in that content and share our actions. A great example of this was the meme created by users about Duo kidnapping family members of students who don’t do their homework. in a joke and we started to answer thousands of comments in a very funny way in several networks”, explained Analigia Martins, marketing director of Duolingo in Brazil.

The strategy worked and, according to Analigia, the videos that bring this theme have already totaled more than 20 million video views on TikTok. ” It’s amazing how much this simple but efficient communication can increase brand identification and love. And the more appreciation, the more content generated by the students themselves, the more virality, the more use of the app and the more present the brand becomes in the mind and , many times, in the hearts of consumers”, stated the executive.

Currently, content creation is one of the main pillars of the application that landed in Brazil just over two years ago and, to maintain the consistency of the posts, the brand has had the help of Jotacom since the beginning of the journey in the country. The team’s mission is to follow current trends and react quickly, so that the brand is always up-to-date and part of conversations with customers.

“We have a lot of creative freedom and a dedicated production for each network, making the brand fluent in each one of them. We are always on top of the subjects that are going on in each one and we know the memes that are in trend. We create content related to these memes or conversations very quickly, having Duo as a digital influencer”, explained Analigia.

One of the examples of the speed and success of the strategy involves the most talked about social network at the moment, Koo. Conversations about the Indian network began to pop up on the networks in the last week and Duolingo took advantage of the moment to generate conversations and create your account on the network.

According to the executive, in two days the Duolingo no Koo account already had 77,000 followers, making them the brand with the most followers on the network.

Analigia also explained that the social network most used by the brand to generate content is TikTok, which, contrary to popular belief, is not the network used to convert brand customers, but to entertain. There, the mascot participates in most trends and responds to comments from followers. “Two months after the official launch, part of our new students come from TikTok’s organic actions”, he pointed out.

The brand’s social media strategies have earned Duoling Brasil over 100,000 followers on Twitter, over a million on TikTok, over 180,000 on Instagram and over 108,000 on Koo.