Lily Rafferty

A Moving Image graduate from the National College of Art and Design Dublin, Lily Rafferty is an Irish social media manager best known for her work transforming the brand presence on TikTok for two multi-billion-dollar companies, Ryanair and Duolingo.

At Ryanair, Lily helped pioneer the airline’s now-iconic TikTok voice, humanising planes through bold, self-aware humour and reactive content. In just one year, she created over 150 videos, generating more than 400 million views, 65 million interactions, and 1 million new followers. This work helped to set the benchmark for brand accounts on the platform. She later joined Duolingo, where she led product social content, contributed to social strategy and created 150+ TikTok videos, contributing to 8 million followers. She led their socials for viral global campaigns around moments like the Super Bowl and Eurovision.

Lily is passionate about platform native content, creative risk taking, and building cohesive brand identities that adapt to evolving algorithms. Known for blending internet culture with strategic thinking, she speaks about what it really takes for brands to win on TikTok today.

Presentation Title:
"How to Befriend TikTok: How Ryanair and Duolingo Mastered the Ever-Changing Rules of the TikTok Algorithm"

We’ve all had moments where we felt at war with the social media algorithm. In this session, Lily will break down the key tactics she used at Ryanair and Duolingo to keep their content on the pulse of the platform.

Brands often get caught up in habitual patterns, which cause their strategy and outputs to become stagnant and underperform. Lily will explore how to take insights from a brand's goals and transfer them into a successful social media strategy.

Last but not least, she will unpack how being well-versed in content editing is crucial to having consistent outputs and why it’s essential to carve out a niche that reflects the core values of your company.

-------------------
TikTok Reinvented | May 21, 2026
This is where TikTok Marketing stops being a content playground and becomes a system for growth