The secret to Duolingo's social success with Zaria Parvez - Semrush Spotlight

0:06Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Uncensored CMO. Now, we've joined up with our friends at SEMrush to bring you a special series spotlighting different aspects of marketing. And in this episode, we're going to be talking all about social with someone who really knows what they're talking about, Zaria Parvez, who is the brains behind the incredible success of Duolingo. We get into all about how she made Duolingo so popular around the world and the secrets to going viral. You will love this. Here it is. Welcome to the show, Zaria. Thank you for having me. Stoked to be here. Well, I've got to start with your LinkedIn posts, right?

0:37Yeah. Yeah, just only just a few weeks ago announcing your move. That just set the worlds alike. I did not think it would. I think part of it was like, I feel like changing careers in your 20s is like normal. And I was like, oh, this is not normal. And it kind of became its own like speculation fest. And I remember when it happened, I was like, did I do the right thing? Like, what did I just do? And I was like, well, guess it's irreversible. So here we are. But yeah, it was it was very crazy to see that happen. I did love your visual. I have to say, you know, sat on dead duo. I mean, that was, yeah, that was, um, actually one of our creative content coordinators, a duo created that for me.

1:14Um, and she was my intern. And when she first started, I really wanted like an illustrator to be part of our content team. I was like, we need a creative, we need someone who can like draw a design because it's so core to do as brand. And then when I left, she like made that for me and I was like, and we never got to work full time together, but I was like, you're always in my heart. And now she's always on LinkedIn. Oh, that's so brilliant. Yeah. How did you feel because I mean you're so well you're so closely associated aren't you and it's been a big big part of your story um what inspired the move at this point to yeah I think the biggest thing really came from this space of like if I was to create another viral campaign or another viral video for duo I don't think it was progressing me like I can say our whole strategy with my eyes closed I could probably figure out a viral video for duo very fast and it became this space of like Like I'm 27.

2:02I should be expanding and growing and I shouldn't feel like I tapped out in my career this early. So it really came from like I just want to do something completely different. So I was like I don't want a mascot. I want to be in a completely new vertical and just like to try what it would feel like to have like a huge in-house social content team. And like what does that look like if you have like the respect of a title and the resources and then also like the good rapport with the people. So that's kind of where it came from. But it was kind of like a rip off the bandaid situation. I was like, I just got to do it.

2:32I love that. I mean, having met Kofi and the DoorDash team, I can really see the things actually. He's a king. They know what they're doing. They really push the creative work and they've got huge ambitions and a very creative organisation. So it makes a lot of sense. You talked about being 27. You started at Duo when you were 22, didn't you? Yeah. How has it been having such a, I mean, most people would kind of like to peak in their careers with the kind of success you've had. how's how have you kind of coped with that dramatic rise I think it's like pros and cons as everything has I think to do that so young was like made it for a fascinating story and people are always like whoa like how did that happen but I think there was also like the inevitable uphill battle being like young in a workplace and having that much impact of like I mean like when I started doing go I did not negotiate my salary I didn't know you're even supposed to do that like it's like these small things that you're like wait you you could do that so I think now I'm going in this space of like, okay, I had all this happen, might have been the peak of my career.

3:28I don't know. But like, at least now I have these lessons that taking forward, like, A, how do I want to treat junior talent? B, like, what do I hope for my future of like, what do I actually want and care about in life? And how do I sustain that? And I think social is a weird space, because like, actually, the most junior people can be the most impactful, because like, young people are at the pulse of culture, and that's needed for social. So it just completely flipped the script. And I think I was one of the first very out there vocal open people for people to like watch that happen so I think it came with the pros and cons of it all but like in the end I'm like I'm still processing it I'm like holy shit those past five years were crazy and I think if I can say you also speak for a lot of social media managers and people in that area don't you they look to you you know for inspiration and guidance I mean talk about salary it's insane even the salary of your replacement was I was not making that much money I was like no exactly but yeah that like that just shows and I think obviously when duo first started like the social team was not that big and like obviously that salary was not associated with it but now it's like oh this is the impact of social first that if you do it correct and you do it well it can actually have business impact on a brand where now a brand really values that role so that conversation also in five years completely has flipped too and that I think is what everyone looks at as being so impressive because I think when you started maybe duo had a quarter a million or three quarters a million kind of followers up to 17 million i mean 17 million would be like an a-list celebrity right yeah duo is he is yeah pretty much an a-list celebrity what were the big moments in that journey that really kind of oh let's go down memory lane so i think the first and foremost was like i was given creative freedom from the get-go and i think i didn't even know permission was something you had to ask for i I didn't know you had to like get approval for posts to go out.

5:15So coming in with that, like, I think almost naive mindset helped me because I wasn't thinking as an advertiser. I was just thinking as like a content creator. And that was kind of, I think, serendipitous of like just someone young coming in and not really knowing. And then I was like, hey, I have this idea for this piece of content. Can we make it happen? And my boss at the time was like, yeah, absolutely. Like, why not? And then we filmed it and it did really well. And I think what's crazy is like the immediate success of it. I think you don't expect that to happen. You expect it to be like most brands have a slow burn kind of growing up to it.

5:47So when that started taking off, then all of a sudden it was like, oh, this is like a global sensation. And so I remember the first time is like I was filming with this guy named Mark, who was usually in the suit. Great guy. Still at Duolingo. Awesome. Still in the suit. And we were filming and we like posted this video. We were like laughing. He was like twerking on a conference room table. It was like now it's like so we expect that from brands before like that was never done before and like I can't believe we just did this lol and then all of a sudden like NBC is calling and I'm like oh shit and so like yes my boss is getting all this PR and I'm like oh I'm fucked like I messed up but it was all like what is this this is amazing like what is going on in like Pittsburgh and I think that transition moment where me and Mark are like slacking like holy shit like everyone's like catching up to us and they know what we're doing and like to see that actually be resonant and people to be impressed with it so I think that was a big moment I think duo being able to walk the red carpet the Barbie premiere was crazy because there was just like an organic mention and then of course like my last hurrah my final goodbye was killing the bird which is kind of poetic in a weird way but I think that was also like this was a culmination of everything I worked for for five years to like see just how much people cared when this fake bird died how how much of kind of going viral I mean everyone wants to go how much of it is is planned and how much of it is just being responsive and seeing what happens so i think it evolved like i think five years ago when duo first started going viral was like hopping on trends and doing it quickly now it's kind of gotten to a space where so many brands do that that it's a little more saturated so i think timeliness did matter five years ago i think now actually creative resonance matters more like how creative can you be so i think it's definite And I feel like we're in a transition area of social for sure.

7:34And so I wouldn't say being timely as much matters anymore. But back then, I think that's totally what like led Duo to their success. Oh, that's so interesting. Why do you not think about being as timely? Because I'd have assumed that being timely is kind of... I think every brand or most brand with good senses has learned that they need to be social first. They need fast approval and they need to like have a little bit of shock factor in it. So now if every brand is doing it, is it really resonant? And so now I think brands who are choosing original creative that's not really trend dependent is now really working because all of a sudden, if you have like 30 brands doing one trend, we're now all in favor of the trend, not in favor of like the brand.

8:16And so that narrative is shifting and people are catching on to like, it's not cool anymore for every brand. Like you're starting to see like the silence brand movement and I moved to TikTok, which used to be so rampant on like Twitter. I see what you mean. Everyone's like jumping on the same trends at the same time, doing the same things. You don't stand out anymore. That makes a lot of sense. Now, one thing I'm fascinated about with Duo is obviously himself, right, as a character, because it's not that common these days, is it, to have a brand character? It's a very kind of old school thing to have a brand mascot.

8:44And how important was Duo and also the personality that you gave Duo as well to become the celebrity that it's become? I mean so crucial like I'm now working right at a brand without a mascot and I'm like I miss the good old days like when you could just throw a mascot in it and it was just like it's such an easy identifiable like brand thing that you don't have to like find like how do I make this relevant to the brand like just throw the mascot in there now it's relevant but I think what really like reignited him was like shaping duo in the world of TikTok because like it didn't really like Wendy's was on Twitter and you saw that personality but at the time there was no duo that really existed on TikTok.

9:22So we kind of took that injection of like the chronically online niche shareable fandom stuff and injected that into him. And then he became who he was. I mean, even when I left, like it was a bit of an identity crisis. Like I'm so used to being like, I know a duo would say like even now sometimes I'm like, damn, I wish I could send this idea over to Duolingo. Like I got these ideas and it's like letting go of that a bit. Cause like that was me. Like that was my personality. I was community managing. I was injecting Zaria into this bird. and now it's this weird meta thing where like am i the bird is the bird me is a bird himself um so that evolution has been interesting yeah it's kind of problematic i'm like girl let go who's taken over and like yeah they're gonna be the same as you we're gonna see we'll see yeah i think they're still hiring for head of social so we'll see who what's gonna happen but i hope they do something different too right like what's the next era and i'm so curious to like watch that that's really fascinating i did some research actually at system one with tiktok and uh we We were looking at how kind of brands gain traction on the platform.

10:17And obviously entertainment is critical. But being recognizable is also so, so important. And what I think characters do brilliantly is duo can turn up anywhere. And immediately you know what to expect. But also you recognize who it is. And when you're competing with so many other brands, I think being recognized as who you are is a really big part of it. It also like fit magically and serendipitously into the lore of duo. like the annoying push notification all this stuff existed right before tiktok and before i existed and so it almost felt like that's the brand connection versus like a random mascot just doing random annoying things so it was a very lucky situation of like this was the brand identity they already built and it actually happened to work perfectly for tiktok so let's like bring it over now you casually dropped in earlier you killed duo right so now this shouldn't be in the playbook should it no i guess the thing you've spent like five years building and creating what was the thought behind killing duo and why did you do it i think it's a little bit twofold so one i believe firmly that social first insights should impact the product and like the brand second figure how to move fast within the product they're going to stand apart and like be that hundred year brand so that was an ambition i had at duo was like how do we just marry product and social just a little bit more.

11:34And so at the time we do these things called app icon changes where they would change the app icon. And, um, one of the product managers was one of my really good friends. And he was like, yeah, we're choosing between these two options, uh, to change your app icon for like a week. What do you think will resonate on social? And I was like, Oh, definitely like the duo with the X's on the eyes. Like that's like, that's a story. Um, and he's like, great. Anyways, we're gonna still AB test this. So your opinion doesn't really matter yet. And I'm like, that was such a product person response, but it was kind of like, okay, whatever.

12:01So he goes, A.B. tests it. And he's like, the two options came out the same. So we'll choose the social narrative. So then where he's like, OK, let's choose like the dead duo. And then we were in a brainstorm. We're like, our initial plan was like, let's just make two or three pieces of content around duo dying. I did not think that the world would respond the way they would respond. Like, I wish I could be like, I knew it. It was going to happen. I planned it. I did it. And that's the magic of social. So we had three posts. One was announcing his death. One was a funeral. and the last one was just like resurrecting.

12:30Like that was it. And when we posted and we saw how much people cared and reacted, we're like, we need to drag this on. Like we need to make this into a whole thing. So it ended up going from like three posts to almost eight posts across two weeks. And we kept building the storyline with the community. So like people are like, what if this happened? What about the other characters? Are they alive? How does that look? And so we kept kind of iterating and spoofing on the nose almost. and like what was great is like we had enough buy-in that nobody cared what we did they were like just under the inappropriate but they're like go for it do it like I wasn't waiting for people to approve this and I think that speaks to the spirit of like Duolingo's experimentation and how social survived like it wasn't a thing that was like we always had to get buy-in and approval for it was just push it go for it and yeah it was like one of my favorite campaigns today and just to see the whole world co-create with you and care so deeply I was like damn I like injected this personality that people care about now am i right in saying you sent his ashes to dua lipa yes that actually happened yes that did happen she didn't respond but we did get a custom urn and sent matcha powder to dua lipa because that was that was also the big thing we're like when i first started our tiktok i built this lore about duo being obsessed with dua lipa just because her name sounded similar she never acknowledged our existence until he died And I remember getting a slack at like 4.30 in the morning from our CEO being like, do a fucking leap on.

13:55I was like, no way. And I think that for me was like peak. But yes, we did center matcha powder. That's incredible. Now, as you tell the stories, the culture must have mattered quite a lot to be able to do the kind of stuff you do. What would you say are the kind of cultural kind of conditions that make a successful kind of social campaign? I think the biggest thing is like not being scared of negative sentiment. I think what goes viral, what breaks the internet, what does well will always come with about 15 % of negative sentiment. And I think once you accept that, you are giving yourself more freedom to run.

14:29And it's also dependence of like what your brand is okay with, like what negative sentiment are you okay with, what are you not okay with, when do you want to draw the line for that. Personally, if I get negative sentiment from like other marketers, I'm like we're winning. Like that's generally – because generally like marketers actually don't like Duolingo that much. and that's what I learned where like they have a lot of problems with it but like if the common consumer and our common user is okay with it, then I'm okay with it. So that's actually like a guardrail for success. I'm like, if other marketers are shitting on me, I think we're doing okay.

14:57I think you're right. Actually, marketers are very bad judge of marketing. Yeah. There's a study the other day where I think it's Ehrenberg Bass Institute asked marketers to rate their own brand's distinctive assets. So it'd be like you rating Dewitt, right? And then they asked the consumers and they were so different. Basically, marketers think that all their things are just obviously you know everyone knows and has heard of them most people haven't done you know so there's a big difference between what you as a market for sure and i feel like i'm very lucky to have this perspective where like no no but nobody in my like close friend group are marketers my husband's actually a doctor so very different like completely different worlds and like i always joke like whenever we watch like the super bowl or a big thing like the way that I watch him mute the ads and go to the bathroom like that's what I am to him I was like our marketing moments are bathroom breaks for the average Joe and I was like that helps me like keep in perspective of like how much does this marketing person's opinion of what we're doing actually matter in the grand scheme of everything it shows why creativity is so important doesn't it you've got to earn the right exactly exactly demand it I wanted to quote if I can James Kaczynski I know you guys work together very well he left a lovely endorsement for you on LinkedIn but he said this he said Zara's ability to take trends and turn them into something the internet needs and wants to talk about is a real skill um unpack that a little bit more about how you kind of take the trends and how you turn them into kind of content I I think the biggest thing is like I feel like every brand has three or four human truths and seeing like what are those general categories of truths that I could inject trends into so like for duo is like language learning is hard so we make it fun but like that's kind of our north star but the common truths are like people don't like learning a language it's really difficult people enjoy like using language to like shit talk for example so like these were like kind of areas that I knew if I could find trends within and use those truths like that content would really take off and I think it's pretty relatively easy to like shape trends into moments for your brand based off of like once you know what like your parameters and I think goals are um so that made it easy I think like with DoorDash now like this is a new challenge where I'm like okay what are like the truths about food delivery and how do we lean into the meme there and like one of like the truths are like it's a guilty pleasure and it's like okay how do I how do I push DoorDash to be okay with being like this may seem negative how do we make it positive and then in general like we're all storytellers and I think content creation is no different like people love to have the lover story arc they love to have a villain like people on social love a villain so like Google Translates was duos we're like who's doordash's villain and so these common parts of like the heroic journey and like these story things are still things you can integrate so i kind of look for that when i'm building off of like a trend yeah yeah makes sense how do you um actually how do you differentiate between kind of short-term and long-term thinking because yeah there's some research came out recently um from the ipa in the uk that actually creators are really really effective at brand building not necessarily at sales activation in fact they act much more like a tv campaign in terms of they you know that they have long lasting effects that kind of thing so how how do you sort of like because obviously social you imagine it to be reactive i'm there i'm on it yeah how do you kind of think in the long term because i like how you said you know how you're already thinking about how doordash is gonna you know have a lover's story or who's the enemy or what's the kind of truth in you know that's there so how do you kind of think long term as well as yeah short term my favorite like campaign like structure framework actually came from wimbledon social team and they disclose this in like an interview with Rachel Carton who does like Lincoln bio great social gal and they talk about the different frameworks of like and they call it bonfire or sorry yeah bonfire campfire and then firework and it kind of helps social people think obviously in the day-to-day so like bonfire is like that camp like that classic like day-to-day hum and drum things that are going on well like firework is like this is the one organic moment in this quarter where we like want to break the internet and obviously that's an ambitious goal but like dead duo kind of came from that.

18:57We're like, we have our day-to-day content. We have all this things going on, but what is that once a quarter in this three month timeframe that we want to create our own original piece of work and like see what we can do with the world. Um, and I think that of like, okay, here's the scrappy day-to-day to the long-term balancing that has allowed me to figure out like, these are the different goals. These are the different budget tiers for this. This is how I'm going to get buy-in for certain things. Like if it's a day-to-day piece of content, I'm way more okay taking a risk because I can take it down versus like a big firework moment with like Cardi B because if I mess up, I probably can't take that down.

19:30And that would really suck to take something down that I just spent millions of dollars on. So like, those are kind of how I'm differentiating of like also getting buy-in, but like thinking on that short term and long term. Yeah. I mean, talk about getting in buy-in. I can imagine it's quite different for you today compared to when you were the one person kind of working on, you know, how do you do it when you've got a team you've got stakeholders you know that there's more going on how do you sort of manage the yeah the scaling up part of it that was like that was a thing I was like number one two and three scared about joining um anywhere I was like listen like who I am and the work I do will not work at a place that doesn't allow me to run with it and I actually remember in an interview with Kofi I was like listen I was like this is what is needs here's my rider I know exactly this is what needs to be true for this to work and I think where I was really lucky is like I set those expectations in early with him.

20:19And like, even our first one-to-one, he's like, my job for you is to make sure you have the ramp to run. And he's like, you tell me when things are getting in the way. And I think a lot of it honestly comes just from a lack of understanding. Like we say social first a lot. What does that mean? Like where, give me a definition. Like no one has really defined it. We haven't contextualized how good organic social is in the sense of like, if it's not meant to give us like conversions, what is it meant to give us then? What does an impression mean? What does share of voice mean? So I think being able to contextualize that data has been crucial.

20:52And I've done that. And now it's like also having, setting those expectations, like they know who I am, what I'm going to do. And I also always tell my team, I'm like, because I actually, it's funny seeing their evolution too. In the past three months, they're like, we've never taken risks like this before. And I was like, I will take the fall, like you push it, do the best creative work possible. I will take the fall for it. and I think that just comes I think also maybe from a place of privilege of being okay with taking the fall but I've noticed it takes a lot to fire somebody so that is my that is my I was like what's the worst they're gonna do fire me it's a good mindset to come in because I feel like it also has a level of trust like we have trust with each other and I try to establish that trust like at the end of the day like I want the brand to be successful and do well just as much as you do but it's probably just gonna look a little bit different yeah there's a couple of things I sort of pick up on there in that last bit we just chatted about and I think when people are looking for a new job they don't think enough about who their boss is going to be because yes i think your boss has such an important you know impacts on your career and the fact that kofi's giving you that freedom and he wants you to do what you've done you know and give you that ramp is so important and i love i love your attitude to risk as well in the what's the worst they can do because so much of what holds us back is ourselves isn't it and how we worry about what goes on yeah like even i remember the first early days at duo like it's like hey we're gonna like type in all lower caps and they were like, we are a language learning company.

22:11If we do not use proper punctuation, I'm like, what are you going to do? And I remember posting it and they were like, my boss at the time, love her, very risk averse. She was like, sorry. And I was like, it's fine. I was like, it'll be okay. And I think, yeah, the culture and the team obviously makes the biggest difference. Like I'm able to say this even openly because I know they'd just be like rolling their eyes and be like, yeah, but like some bosses do suck and they don't allow that freedom and i think as a social person like my advice is like get out like if you can get out of that situation find a place even if it's a small unknown brand that has more freedom like creative freedom is more was more important to me than like salary title all of that i was like i need that freedom to fly otherwise i will be like stuck if i don't have it i think the other thing that uh comes out in a culture is what happens when things go wrong yes that reveals everything doesn't it like oh how do people react have you have you had any tough moments um where things haven't gone as yeah oh of course i remember so when i first started at duo we there was like the amber heard and johnny depp trial was going on and at the time we were just commenting and i remember i think i commented like does amber watch tiktok and that got like so skewed like people were like duolingo supports blah blah blah zaria's doing this and they found me and dox me and all this stuff.

23:27And I remember being stressed. Like at that point I was like, it's been a good run. They're going to fire me now. I was like, this is it now. What are they going to do? They're going to fire me. Um, and I remember our CMO at the time, Cammie, um, she came up to me and she's like, and I still use this quote everywhere. She's like, you do not know where the line is unless you cross it. And that was it. And I was like, yeah, I wish she said, um, but like, exactly. And she was like, I'm glad you made this mistake. Now we know that's on the bottom of every email now. Yeah, literally exactly. And I like, and I think it's such a good mantra.

23:55Cause it's like, because we're so scared of even crossing the line, even though 1 % of the time that it happens, we just stop and don't do anything. And she was like, having this brand faux pas, this mess was like actually worth the 99 % of the time it worked out. But again, that comes back to like the leadership around me. Like she could have been like, you're out, like that's it. And I think that's something I continue to like look for and also be like, how do I be for now my team if they mess up to like emulate Kami and not freak out? And like, how do I contain crash outs and make sure that like at the end of the day it's a brand and I think the good part is is like the internet moves on things happen and people find another brand to hate on so I try to keep myself grounded in that yeah remind people what everyone else is going yeah exactly exactly but you're right though like we we fear the one percent that goes wrong and therefore we don't push ourselves on the 99 other things that we should yeah 100 percent yeah and now one thing that stands out for me in your story is the fact that you've you've built a personal brand haven't you like almost alongside and we've all followed your story and you've been very generous about sharing your journey through the newsletter and through LinkedIn how important is it to kind of have a personal brand running alongside oh it's everything I think when I started it I honestly like made that LinkedIn post for like my college university professors when I first was like I'm sorry and I'm behind this like I didn't think it was going to become a personal brand and then I think like that first post got like 50 ,000 likes and I was like this was just for my college professor like why is everyone so invested and then from there like to this day I'm like that post was the best gift I could have given myself now because at the end of the day like we all work for corporations we all work for brands and like the only thing that you can really genuinely have that is fully yours is what you put out in the world and so I mean it's unlocked opportunities it's allowed me to be here like it's allowed me to just meet new people and like always know I have that to fall back onto and like I've always loved writing like I've actually wanted to be a copywriter or journalist and like another life.

25:52I was like, that is where I think my creativity shines. And this was something people were interested in that I could write about. And like people were engaging with it. And I think the brand thing also worked out because it was one of the first times that like a brand also allowed someone to take credit for their work, which was very unique to do lingo culture. Like it was not like, okay, like coordinator, like you be quiet. Now the boss is going to go like our CMO at the time. And even my boss at the time was like you did the work girl like you're gonna be in this interview and i remember like shitting bricks it was like the it was with the rolling stone and i was like i don't want to do this i don't want to do this and my boss is like no you're gonna go do it and you're gonna go do it well and like we have your back go do it and i think like having people in your corner encouraging you kind of also gives you like that two percent confidence every single time so then i was like wait i can write i do have thoughts to bring i can be strategic so it's all about the advocates and the people around you that allow you to build that brand i think so many businesses don't realize it's a win-win isn't it because it's a win for you personally as in you build your own profile and opportunity arises but it reflects so well on the company and you're a walking advert for the company as well and yeah and in terms of it also attracting talent into business because loads of people will be watching you going I want to do what she's doing absolutely and it's like that's and I think that's what's so cool about Duolingo at the time is like they understood that like it's almost like they were always thinking 10 steps ahead and I'm like I don't know how y 'all did it and how leadership did it but that's what their and the environment was and I think it was also this weird space where like I became Zaria from Duolingo and I'm like wait I'm Zaria as a human and what do I mean outside of that which is also like kind of I guess the cons of it of like you become so in this one zone this one bubble that you start to be like I want to be known for more hopefully of doing good in the world than like a mascot suit you know and like I think that's where I'm at like this is my attempt of like risk taking on myself now like okay I walked the walk on her brand I'm going to take a risk now on Zaria and I'm going risk and take a bet on my creativity and be like what can I do beyond this world in this realm and you're catching me in the middle of this risk and it's like been a couple months and it's it's intimidating but I feel like every day I'm like wow I'm actually like learning something totally new and that's all thanks to like the encouragement of building this brand and what that gave me well I mean I mean sticking on that theme a bit what do you hope happens next for you oh what would you like to look back on and go do you know what this this was the next chapter and how it unfolded I really wanted to walk the walk of bringing a traditional brand social first because I feel like that was something and feedback I kept receiving was like well you were at Duolingo like you started from zero to one like you didn't have all these guardrails so if I'm able to make DoorDash a social first place I'm like fuck yeah like I did it like I took a place I did something before and now I'm getting them to do something totally different and it's working then I'm like that is that is a narrative I hope to get out of this job yeah Yeah, that's very, very cool.

28:42I can see that happening as well. They're the kind of business and doing the taking jumps. Yeah, exactly. And like they want to do it. So that makes it easier to do it too. That helps, doesn't it? Exactly. Working with them rather than against them. Now we must mention the A word. I'm sorry to drop some of the comments. We've gone however long we've gone without talking about it. But, you know, AI is transforming everything, right? All over the place, isn't it? How is it changing, you know, how we do social in terms of whether it's production or how we, you know, spot trends or anything like that?

29:10How are you seeing it? It's like, it's a really weird space to be a social person with AI. Cause like on one end you have like investors being like, AI will help with production and like, it's going to make things faster. And then you have consumers being like, don't you dare touch AI. And you're just kind of that middleman, like, Hey guys. So the way that I've been approaching it is like, I want AI to do all this stuff that I never liked about marketing. So like it's down to like, you know, billing all the way down to like grabbing insights, grabbing these reports contextualizing what we're doing versus like the actual creative production aspect of it so that's where we are right now we're like okay like maybe there's a way to like punch up what we're doing I think one of my favorite interviews recently and I also mentioned this in the keynote earlier today was like with David Droga and he was like AI is going to replace the average it'll get you from like zero to six but the people who are six to ten like it's not going to replace that and I think for me that is very like oh so you can still be an expert at your craft, still be an expert at what you do, but now you can focus more on that creative work versus like focusing on like all the nitty gritty.

30:12So that's how my team's approaching it and how we're approaching it. I, I do have belief that I think in the next two years, like the video production scale of it is going to become way better than it is today. And it's going to become harder and harder for us to differentiate. And there will be a time I'm convinced where consumers will be okay with these AI feeds and this AI content, but we're not there yet. And that's okay. and also what i noticed you do so what your copywriting and it is just beautiful as well and i that that sort of originality of thoughts you don't even see an ai do you no and and the creative leaps that you make that you know who would have thought of sending you know ashes to i mean i don't think ai is going to come yeah exactly and it's like but you know what ai can do make the shipping label figure out do his after like do all this stuff that you just don't want to do and it's like okay now on to the next idea i was wondering though it's actually um just in in in what i do really whether ai could monitor trends for me and alert me to things that are happening in culture and almost be my eyes and ears and sort of almost give you that information real-time information if ai could do that i would love that because then you're like you don't have to be chronically online anymore like it allows space for you also social people to like breathe and live a life so yeah if you find the tool for that let me know i think we should do that now i have one question here from sam who's my social media manager was like dying there you go big love to sam actually he's amazing by the way and a super fan of yours but he just said um if you were running a podcast what kind of what kind of thing would you do um i mean obviously like podcast clips i think are huge and you guys know that as well i actually feel like call her daddy i'm sure you guys have heard um but i feel like alex cooper does a great job of like keeping people engaged and i think she finds a really good way of like obviously she has like these hosts and like sorry not hosts she has guests who are very famous but i think her ways of like staying on the trend and understanding the fandom lore of each person and leaning into that is really smart so yeah find the lore behind each guest and then make content with them um as additional to your podcast clips the lore behind each guest oh that's nice i like that exactly taking that one where's sam you listening um now we've talked a lot about kind of creating content social being on top of things there's a flip side to that of course isn't there in the i mean how do you cope but i'm just wondering you how do you cope with I'm unwell hey how do you know how do you stay on top of it all you're creating lots of content you're leading others you know you're in you're in demanding businesses doing lots of things it's very hard isn't it how do you switch off get the balance right with all this kind of thing yeah I think the biggest thing is like I work a nine to five to like sustain myself but I I've never seen work as my end-all be-all and I stay very true to that and I always tell my team that I'm like if you're still on at 5 p.m like I think there's beauty and like finding other things in life that bring you joy and like work will never be the thing that will give me joy and sustenance I guess which is like and I'm very intentional about that like even part of the reason why I left duo was like it was getting too big I was like I feel like everywhere I go and these like certain niches people are like goes are you from duolingo what are you gonna do next what are the and I'm like I just want to be sorry from door to ash like who is she and I think that was like part of it is like figuring out like what is actually bringing me joy what is actually bringing fulfillment and happiness and if it's not work which hopefully it shouldn't be then like how do i kind of prioritize my time into that so like there's still moments where like i love writing on linkedin but if i'm like yeah i don't like if i didn't write for three weeks that's okay too so i think finding that balance giving you permission not to do exactly i'm about energy as well because i'm convinced that you need to go where the energy is and and get your feed should be what gives you energy rather than what takes energy it's very easy for feeds to kind of depress you and distract you rather than actually you know curate curate your feed to give you uh inspiration go to substack i was like substack is it's so it's so peaceful and i feel like the brands are going to come and it's not going to be peaceful shortly but it's early now you're in you're in the window exactly exactly but right now i feel like seeing long form content is really thrilling and exciting for me now like i actually find myself steering away from like short form.

34:16So like long form YouTube, things like Substack have also been very creatively fulfilling and also like building stuff with your hands. Big Lego girl, love to build Legos. And I think it's like, I'm still creative, but I'm not staring at a screen all the time. There's probably a reaction, isn't there? We're all wanting to be in real life. We're wanting to do craft. We're wanting to do things that, you know, that, you know, are the opposite of our online self. You write actually about long form. I mean, doing this podcast has been amazing. People will listen to 45 minutes for an hour all the way through undistracted it's incredible but i think people yearn that sort of more intimate longer absolutely of talking as well so i want one thing that i did make me smile that you said the other day it might have been on your sub stack actually you said the best marketers hate marketing i think the best marketers aren't even marketers yeah like honestly the people i meet that are entrepreneurs founders and you go hey man that marketing you did was amazing go what marketing yeah exactly yeah i i mean i don't even consider myself a best marketer to be clear i just feel like there's moments where like we get so caught in the weeds of like if this is looking this way but if her face looks this but if like like these little details where i'm like nobody gives a crap like we are if we are lucky we are five percent of somebody's not even five percent is a big number maybe five seconds of somebody's day and i think the more we treat ourselves like that and it's not to like look down at our work but like also like a doctor is probably five percent of your day like it's not the main show and I think the more that we realize that the more allowance we give ourselves to like take bigger swings take creative risks like even if a brand is getting canceled you probably see one or two videos about it and scroll on like for us it's everything because that's our brand but like for most people they're like damn did you see that anyways and I think having that reality check allows us to be more creative and better because now we're just putting out good work in the world versus like, is this good marketing?

36:05Yeah. This is why Ryan Reynolds is one of my favorite marketers. He wouldn't call himself a marketer, but he turns, he buys a brand, he'll do a video overnight, he'll entertain people, he'll make everyone watch it. And it's just brilliant. Exactly. And he acts a bit more like he does. A hundred percent. I mean, his astronomer thing, perfection. It was great. I know. Exactly. So we learn a lot from that. Just to end on, you just done your keynote speech at SEMrush. Yes. If you could pick one thing from your speech that you want everyone to learn from, what would it be? Find time for boredom in your day.

36:34I think that was a really like reintroduce boredom into your life because I think in the stillness of life and the things like go on a walk without a podcast. And I think the silence of life almost becomes space. And I think at first it feels very uncomfortable because we're so used to being like inundated with stuff all the time. But once you become comfortable in that stillness, it just becomes space to grow and experiment. and so I'm very big about reintroducing boredom. That is such good advice. I love that. It's almost like your brain works everything out, doesn't it? In silence, isn't it?

37:06Exactly. And you don't give your mind a chance to sort of figure it out. And I feel like we sometimes feel ashamed of being bored or feel ashamed of not productively using our time, but I think it's okay to be not productive all the time. There you go. What a brilliant advice to end on. Saru, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's been so lovely to talk. I really appreciate you telling us. Yeah, you as well. Congratulations on the DoorDash role as well. Excited to see what happens next. We'll see. It's coming. Exactly. Thank you so much. Cool. Thanks. Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored CMO.

37:34I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on X at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn, where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.