By learning the language of TikTok, Duolingo soars to new heights

PITTSBURGH — Zaria Parvez’s favorite days are TikTok filming days.

As a social media coordinator at Pittsburgh-based Duolingo Inc. (NASDAQ: DUOL), a freemium educational platform primarily focused on language learning, Parvez is responsible for running the team behind the company’s account on TikTok — a social networking service owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd. that primarily features short-form videos created by its users.

Parvez is also the one responsible for the account’s recent explosive and viral success, which has generated more than 73 million views across the 25 videos it has posted over the course of the past month.

It’s the first job 23-year-old Parvez has had since graduating from the University of Oregon in the spring of 2020, formally joining Duolingo in June of last year. As a user of the video-based platform well before taking on the job, Parvez felt confident in knowing what makes for a successful video on TikTok after watching so many of them herself. Because of that, she also saw an opportunity for Duolingo to better tap into the benefits the TikTok platform can offer to those who know how to use it best.

Read more in the Pittsburgh Business Times.

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