from The Appcues Blog https://www.appcues.com/blog/personalized-product-examples

from adage.com https://adage.com/article/news/advertisers-block-black-lives-matter-keywords-while-public-support-movement-skyrockets-thursday-wake/2261591

When Matt Joseph was raising money a few years ago for a startup he founded, Locent, a venture capitalist asked Joseph, who is black, if he had considered creating a record label instead of a tech company. 

In a different pitch meeting, a group of investors told Joseph he reminded them of Barack Obama and suggested he get into politics—a comment he felt was “racist and insulting,” even though he thinks they intended it as a compliment. 

from The Information https://www.theinformation.com/articles/as-silicon-valley-turns-attention-to-race-black-entrepreneurs-detail-prejudice

from UX Collective – Medium https://uxdesign.cc/a-breakdown-of-ux-research-types-bd127c10b364?source=rss—-138adf9c44c—4

from British Vogue https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/hanifa-anifa-mvuemba-digital-fashion-show

Number 4: Use standalone graphics to share information

I love Twitter.

It’s one of my favorite places on the Internet, and one of the few sites I visit more than once per day. There’s so much to see and do that even when I’m not actively tweeting, it’s safe to say I’m reading, clicking links, and favoriting things to look at again later. As far as social media marketing goes, Twitter is one of the major players.

With over 330+ million monthly active users on the site, it’s easy to see why Twitter is one of the platforms most businesses and marketers could benefit from joining. But here’s the big question: How do you get some of those 330 million monthly active users to engage with your posts and click on your content?

While building followers and social media presence take time, there are strategies and techniques you can use to increase your Twitter engagement quickly, which in turn can lead to more clicks, increased brand awareness, and more conversions.

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In order for your audience to engage with your posts and click on your content, they need to actually see what you’re posting. One of the best ways to make your content stand out is by adding an image.

Convince&Convert found that sharing images on Twitter increases retweets by 150%. Including a large image with a short summary of text on Twitter is more visually appealing than a text-only post.

In fact, AdWeeks’ research shows that users engaged at a rate of 5x higher when an image was included.

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The first, and perhaps most obvious, reason to share your content more than once is to drive more traffic that the initial share. Tom Tunguz did an experiment on his own blog to show how reposting the same content helped him to boost traffic.

To get an idea of how many people were seeing and sharing his posts, Tom looked at the number of Retweets he got when Tweeting a link to one of his blog posts. We can assume from this that actual visits to his posts increased with each Retweet, as well.

Below is a chart of the average number of retweets a post receives the first, second, and third time he tweets it. On average, each subsequent attempt gains about 75% of the previous number of retweets, a very encouraging metric.

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Do you have an awesome Tweet you want all of your followers to see? You can pin tweets to your profile that will remain on the top of your page until you removed the pin.

• Pin a Tweet that has an eye-catching image to boost retweets by 35%.
• A pinned tweet is similar to an ad, except you don’t have to pay for it. Take advantage of this free advertisement by having a strong call to action.
• Include a URL in your pinned tweet to receive 86% more engagement.

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By now, we all know that using images in tweets will increase engagement, but what about adding an image without any links? A standalone graphic is an image that gives useful information on its own without needing a link back to something.

Research shows that posting a standalone graphic with a quote increases retweets by 19%.

• Use a graphic with text that gives quick information to your followers.
• Grab small pieces of information from your blog posts to put in your standalone graphic.
• Use tools like Canva to create a standalone graphic.

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Research shows that “customer emotions become permanent with time. It’s best for an effective intervention to take place as close to the experience as possible,” says Baba Shiv, Stanford Professor of Marketing at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

When users respond to your posts on Twitter or mention your business name, respond quickly. If you don’t, then it’s going to seem like you’re not very active on your own Twitter page, or you simply don’t care.

It’s been found by Search Engine Watch that 65% of surveyed Twitter users expect a response from brands they reach out to on Twitter, and of those users, 53% want that response in under an hour so it’s your priority to respond as fast as possible.

• Your followers will be much more likely to post comments if they know that you are reading them and that you will respond to them in a helpful manner.
• Use first names when you are responding. Addressing your followers in this way makes them feel more appreciated, not to mention that people love to be acknowledged. Small gestures like these help to build loyalty.
• If you respond right away, there’s a chance that the conversation will continue since they may still be on your page.

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Are you only tweeting your own content? Sharing the content of others is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you and that you value the work of others enough to share it on your own Twitter feed.

One report found that 82% of marketers curate content. Curating content is a widely known tactic for a reason because it works. Over 50% of marketers that curate content indicate that it has increased their brand visibility, thought leadership, SEO, web traffic, and buyer engagement.

Next time you post on Twitter, mix in a few curated pieces along with your usual content to increase engagement among your followers to expand their experience.

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Twitter didn’t invent the hashtag (#), but it certainly popularized it with the masses.

According to Quicksprout, hashtags are proven to double your engagement rate and help users to easily search for a topic or trend on Twitter.

Hashtags identify the subject of your content, making it easier for Twitter users to stumble across your page when searching for similar subjects.

Because of this, using hashtags is an incredible way to boost social media engagement among both followers and non-followers since you’re making your content more visible.

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While images perform better than text, Twitter users love videos, especially on mobile. According to Research Now, The majority of Twitter users (82%) watch video content on Twitter and most watch on a hand-held screen.

Twitter users value discovering video content. Twitter is all about discovering relevant and interesting content at the moment. So it’s not surprising that 41% of users believe that Twitter is a great place to discover videos.

People also turn to Twitter to be in the know. In fact, Twitter users are 25% more likely than the average consumer to discover video first among their friends.

An analysis found that native video on Twitter drives more overall engagement than third-party videos shared on Twitter: 2.5x replies, 2.8x Retweets, and 1.9x Favorites.

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The number of people you engage with is directly related to followers viewing your tweets. In order to maximize engagement, you must post at the best possible times.

According to Coschedule’s research, the best times to post on social media, studies show a few ways to make every tweet get a little more engagement:

Use these times as a guideline. Test out different times and find out when your audience is the most active on Twitter. You can also check out Twitter Analytics to see when your specific audience is most active.

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When you interact with a major player in your industry, it can help get some eyes on you. On Twitter, even talking about or tagging an industry leader or peer can be enough to get extra eyes and engagement on your post.

Whether you start a conversation with them directly or just write a post and tag them in it (in a way that makes sense, like by sharing their content or saying you liked their product), they may notice and engage. Especially if they respond or retweet your content, you can continue to get higher levels of engagement if their audience is active.

Again, this can also help build relationships with big names in your industry, and they could be more inclined to share some of your content or posts later on, likely helping you to get more engagement when they do.

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The research found that one in four of those you thank will follow you back. But there’s more to it than that: gratitude also boosts your Twitter engagement exponentially.

Buffer’s research found the following, based on their 50 “thank you for sharing” tweets:

• 26% (13/50) of the people they thanked, favorited their tweet (recognized their thanks)
• 30% (15/50) of the people they thanked replied to them
• 26% (13/50) of the people they thanked followed them
• 24% (12/50) of the people they thanked engaged with them in more than one way (both replied and followed them, both favorited and followed them, etc.)

What does this data show? Basically, if you look for people who are sharing your content, and offer them a simple “thanks” or express your gratitude, you have a better chance of them following you.

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Since Twitter only has so many characters, it only makes sense to use abbreviated, shortened links to the content you’re posting. You don’t need your whole website address to be listed as long as users are clicking.

Using shortened links will give you more characters, your Tweets will look cleaner, and it can increase retweets.

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Instead of having a plain block of text, consider breaking up the text with an emoticon. Emoticons show a certain element of playfulness that provides your brand with a bit of personality.

In fact, statistics show that using emoticons will boost the share and comment rate of your posts, and can help increase favorites by as much as 57%.

• Choose one or two emoticons per tweet. “Think of emojis as the ultimate elevator pitch for your business: you have one or two symbols to let people know exactly what value you’re bringing them with every tweet.”
• Use emoticons when responding to your followers to add a personal touch and show appreciation.
• Emphasize specific parts of your tweet with a correlating emoticon to intensify engagement.

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This one might fall under the title of “common sense” for many of you, so it’s great to see that there’s data to back up the claim. Social media analytics company Beevolve analyzed 36 million Twitter profiles and 28 billion tweets to find the correlation between tweet frequency and twitter followers. The results (as you might have guessed): Those who tweet more have the most followers.

Specifically:

• A Twitter user who has sent 1 to 1,000 tweets has an average of 51 to 100 followers
• Users who have tweeted more than 10,000 times are followed on average by 1,000 to 5,000 users
• It’s estimated that a person with more than 15,000 tweets has between 100,000 to 1 million followers

I think it’s important to keep a few things in mind with this data:

• Lots of tweets equal lots of activity. And the more active you are on social media, the more likely you are to gain followers, make connections, and build relationships.
• Lots of tweets equal lots of experience. As you tweet more, you get better at tweeting.
• Lots of tweets equal longevity. It makes sense to think that that the longer you’re around on social media, the more time and opportunity you’ll have to grow your followers. Posting 10,000 updates would mean a years’ worth of 27 posts daily. You’d deserve all the followers you get at that awesome pace!

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All of these strategies are free, and only require a little extra time and an adjustment to the content you may already be creating for Twitter.

There are 300+ million monthly active users, after all, you just have to find the right strategies to get them to interact with you and your content.

Look at engagement as a stepping stone that leads followers to view your website, subscribe to your newsletters, and purchase your product. Without engagement, you will be tweeting to a black abyss. Building a strong relationship with your Twitter followers will bring forth high engagement.

Although data and studies can help steer you in the right direction, the best way to figure out what works best for you and your audience is to test out new strategies and tactics. Remember, all audiences are different. Try out different images, texts, A/B tests, and make data-driven changes.

from Medium https://medium.com/better-marketing/14-data-backed-strategies-to-boost-twitter-engagement-8950d77017e1

What are some of the reasons you run an A/B test?

When I think of the benefits of A/B testing, I think of one of the most popular and concrete ways to experiment with ad designs that are effective for target audiences. I think of how changing one simple element can be the deciding factor for customers, and that running a test will help me figure out the preferred design.

Up until recently, I thought that there was only one kind of A/B test. After all, the definition itself is pretty straightforward.

Then, I came across a different kind of A/B test. This method still involves testing variants to discover the preference of an audience, but it involves more calculation, and more trial and error.

This method is called Bayesian A/B testing, and if you want to take a more specific, tactical approach to your ad testing, this might be the answer.

But first, let’s talk about how Bayesian A/B testing is different from traditional A/B tests.

Bayesian A/B Testing

There are two types of A/B tests: Frequentist and Bayesian.

Every A/B test has the same few components. They use data, based on a metric, that determines variants A and B. For example, a metric can be the amount of times an ad is clicked. To determine the winner, that metric is measured statistically.

Let’s apply this to an example of using the frequentist, or traditional, approach. In this scenario, you would design two ads and change one variable, such as the copy of the ad. Then, pick the metric, like the amount of times an ad is clicked.

The winner of the frequentist A/B test in this example would be which ad was clicked the most by your target audience based solely on results from that experiment.

If you were to illustrate these components in a Bayesian A/B test, you would approach the test using different data.

That definition can sound a little difficult to visualize without an example, so let’s go over one.

If your previous ad on Facebook drew 867 unique visitors and acquired 360 conversions, earning a 41% conversion rate, you would use that data to inform an expectation. If you were to figure that your next Facebook ad reached 5,000 unique visitors, you could infer that you’d earn 2,050 conversions based on that prior experience. This would be variant "A."

Let’s say you look at a similar Facebook ad’s performance and ultimately earned a 52% conversion rate. This is variant "B." What you have done by collecting the data from the two variants is to calculate the posterior distribution, and the previous tests you’ve run have now become the ground for your Bayesian test.

If, before calculating the posterior distribution, you had inferences about conversion rates earned from each variable, you can now update them based on the data you’ve collected. You can ask hypothetical questions about your test, such as "How likely is it that ‘B’ will be larger than variant ‘A’?" In this case, you can infer that the answer to this is 9%.

Then, the trial and error portion begins.

Bayesian methodology makes decisions by doing some inference. You can calculate expected loss by the rate your metric decreases when choosing either variable. Set a boundary, such as 2%, that the metric should drop below. Once you have collected enough data to support that a variant dropped below 2%, you’ll have your test winner.

Because your inferred loss for a variant is the average amount of what your metric would decrease by if you chose said variant, your boundary should be small enough to comfortably suggest making a mistake that large.

The methodology suggests that you are more willing to make a mistake of a certain amount, then move on to a more refined experiment instead of wasting time on a mistake that dropped below that threshold.

If you were to run two experiments, they would stop when the expected loss is below that 4% boundary. You would use the values of your variants to calculate your average loss. Then, you would begin the test again using these values as your prosperity distribution.

Bayesian A/B testing proves that you can make a business decision that won’t fall below that boundary you set. You can use the data you’ve collected to continuously run tests until you see metrics increase with each experiment.

When you use Bayesian testing, you can modify the test periodically and improve the results as the test runs. Bayesian A/B testing uses constant innovation to give you concrete results by making small improvements in increments. You don’t have to use inference as a result, but instead, use it as a variant.

If you’re running A/B tests on software or different channels, you don’t have to change them to run a Bayesian A/B test. Instead, you can look at the tools you have at your disposal in that software to give you more calculated results. Then, you can continuously run those tests and analyze them to pick your winners.

You might use a Bayesian A/B test instead of a traditional A/B test if you want to factor in more metrics into your findings. This is a really good test to calculate a more concrete ROI on ads. Of course, if you have less time on your hands, you can always use a frequentist approach to get more of a "big picture" conclusion.

Whichever method you choose, A/B testing is popular because it gives you an inference that can be useful for you in future campaigns.

from Hubspot https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/bayesian-ab-testing

Kinetic Typography may sound complicated but it’s just the elegant way to say “moving text” and, more specifically, to combine motion with text to create animations.

Imagine text on top of a 3D object, now could you see it moving along the object’s shape? Nice! That’s exactly what we’ll do in this article, we’ll learn how to move text on a mesh using Three.js and three-bmfont-text.

We’re going to skip a lot of basics, so to get the most from this article we recommend you have some basic knowledge about Three.js, GLSL shaders, and three-bmfont-text.

Basis

The main idea for all these demos is to have a texture with text, use it on a mesh and play with it inside shaders. The simplest way of doing it is to have an image with text and then use it as a texture. But it can be a pain to figure out the correct size to try to display crisp text on the mesh, and later to change whatever text is in the image.

To avoid all these issues, we can generate that texture using code! We create a Render Target (RT) where we can have a scene that has text rendered with three-bmfont-text, and then use it as the texture of a mesh. This way we have more freedom to move, change, or color text. We’ll be taking this route following the next steps:

1. Set up a RT with the text
2. Create a mesh and add the RT texture
3. Change the texture inside the fragment shader

To begin, we’ll run everything after the font file and atlas are loaded and ready to be used with three-bmfont-text. We won’t be going over this since I explained it in one of my previous articles.

The structure goes like this:

init() {
  // Create geometry of packed glyphs
  loadFont(fontFile, (err, font) => {
    this.fontGeometry = createGeometry({
      font,
      text: "ENDLESS"
    });

    // Load texture containing font glyphs
    this.loader = new THREE.TextureLoader();
    this.loader.load(fontAtlas, texture => {
      this.fontMaterial = new THREE.RawShaderMaterial(
        MSDFShader({
          map: texture,
          side: THREE.DoubleSide,
          transparent: true,
          negate: false,
          color: 0xffffff
        })
      );

      // Methods are called here
    });
  });
}

Now take a deep breath, grab your tea or coffee, chill, and let’s get started.

Render Target

A Render Target is a texture you can render to. Think of it as a canvas where you can draw whatever is inside and place it wherever you want. Having this flexibility makes the texture dynamic, so we can later add, change, or remove stuff in it.

Let’s set a RT along with a camera and a scene where we’ll place the text.

createRenderTarget() {
  // Render Target setup
  this.rt = new THREE.WebGLRenderTarget(
    window.innerWidth,
    window.innerHeight
  );

  this.rtCamera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(45, 1, 0.1, 1000);
  this.rtCamera.position.z = 2.5;

  this.rtScene = new THREE.Scene();
  this.rtScene.background = new THREE.Color("#000000");
}

Once we have the RT scene, let’s use the font geometry and material previously created to make the text mesh.

createRenderTarget() {
  // Render Target setup
  this.rt = new THREE.WebGLRenderTarget(
    window.innerWidth,
    window.innerHeight
  );

  this.rtCamera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(45, 1, 0.1, 1000);
  this.rtCamera.position.z = 2.5;

  this.rtScene = new THREE.Scene();
  this.rtScene.background = new THREE.Color("#000000");

  // Create text with font geometry and material
  this.text = new THREE.Mesh(this.fontGeometry, this.fontMaterial);

  // Adjust text dimensions
  this.text.position.set(-0.965, -0.275, 0);
  this.text.rotation.set(Math.PI, 0, 0);
  this.text.scale.set(0.008, 0.02, 1);

  // Add text to RT scene
  this.rtScene.add(this.text);
 
  this.scene.add(this.text); // Add to main scene
}

Note that for now, we added the text to the main scene to render it on the screen.

Cool! Let’s make it more interesting and “paste” the scene over a shape next.

Mesh and render texture

For simplicity, we’ll first use the shape of a BoxGeometry together with ShaderMaterial to pass custom shaders, time and the render texture uniforms.

createMesh() {
  this.geometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(1, 1, 1);

  this.material = new THREE.ShaderMaterial({
    vertexShader,
    fragmentShader,
    uniforms: {
      uTime: { value: 0 },
      uTexture: { value: this.rt.texture }
    }
  });

  this.mesh = new THREE.Mesh(this.geometry, this.material);

  this.scene.add(this.mesh);
}

The vertex shader won’t be doing anything interesting this time; we’ll skip it and focus on the fragment instead, which is sampling the colors of the RT texture. It’s inverted for now to stand out from the background (1. - texture).

varying vec2 vUv;

uniform sampler2D uTexture;

void main() {
  vec3 texture = texture2D(uTexture, vUv).rgb;

  gl_FragColor = vec4(1. - texture, 1.);
}

Normally, we would just render the main scene directly, but with a RT we have to first render to it before rendering to the screen.

render() {
  ...

  // Draw Render Target
  this.renderer.setRenderTarget(this.rt);
  this.renderer.render(this.rtScene, this.rtCamera);
  this.renderer.setRenderTarget(null);
  this.renderer.render(this.scene, this.camera);
}

And now a box should appear on the screen where each face has the text on it:

Looks alright so far, but what if we want to repeat the text many times around the shape?

Repeating the texture

GLSL’s built-in function fract comes handy to make repetition. We’ll use it to repeat the texture coordinates when multiplying them by a scalar so it wraps between 0 and 1.

varying vec2 vUv;

uniform sampler2D uTexture;

void main() {
  vec2 repeat = vec2(2., 6.); // 2 columns, 6 rows
  vec2 uv = fract(vUv * repeat);

  vec3 texture = texture2D(uTexture, uv).rgb;
  texture *= vec3(uv.x, uv.y, 1.);

  gl_FragColor = vec4(texture, 1.);
}

Notice here that we are also multiplying the texture by the uv components so that we can see the modified texture coordinates visually. This helps us figure out what is going on, since there are very few resources for debugging shaders, so the more ways we can visualize what’s going on, the easier it is to debug! Once we know it’s working the way we intend, we can just comment out, or remove that line.

We’re getting there, right? The text should also follow the object’s shape. Here’s where time comes in! We’re going to add it to the x component of the texture coordinate so that the texture moves horizontally.

varying vec2 vUv;

uniform sampler2D uTexture;
uniform float uTime;

void main() {
  float time = uTime * 0.75;
  vec2 repeat = vec2(2., 6.);
  vec2 uv = fract(vUv * repeat + vec2(-time, 0.));

  vec3 texture = texture2D(uTexture, uv).rgb;

  gl_FragColor = vec4(texture, 1.);
}

And for a sweet touch, let’s blend the color with the the background.

This is basically the process! RT texture, repetition, and motion. Now that we’ve looked at the mesh for so long, using a BoxGeometry gets kind of boring, doesn’t it? Let’s change it in the next final bonus chapter.

Changing the geometry

As a kid, I loved playing and twisting these tangle toys, perhaps that’s the reason why I find satisfaction with knots and twisted shapes? Let this be an excuse to work with a torus knot geometry.

For the sake of rendering smooth text we’ll exaggerate the amount of tubular segments the knot has.

createMesh() {
  this.geometry = new THREE.TorusKnotGeometry(9, 3, 768, 3, 4, 3);

  ...
}

Inside the fragment shader, we’ll repeat any number of columns we want just to make sure to leave the same number of rows as the number of radial segments, which is 3.

varying vec2 vUv;

uniform sampler2D uTexture;
uniform float uTime;

void main() {
  vec2 repeat = vec2(12., 3.); // 12 columns, 3 rows
  vec2 uv = fract(vUv * repeat);

  vec3 texture = texture2D(uTexture, uv).rgb;
  texture *= vec3(uv.x, uv.y, 1.);

  gl_FragColor = vec4(texture, 1.);
}

And here’s our tangled torus knot:

Before adding time to the texture coordinates, I think we can make a fake shadow to give a better sense of depth. For that we’ll need to pass the position coordinates from the vertex shader using a varying.

varying vec2 vUv;
varying vec3 vPos;

void main() {
  vUv = uv;
  vPos = position;

  gl_Position = projectionMatrix * modelViewMatrix * vec4(position, 1.);
}

We now can use the z-coordinates and clamp them between 0 and 1, so that regions of the mesh that are farther from the screen get darker (towards 0), and those closer to the screen, lighter (towards 1).

varying vec3 vPos;

void main() {
  float shadow = clamp(vPos.z / 5., 0., 1.);

  gl_FragColor = vec4(vec3(shadow), 1.);
}

See? It sort of looks like white bone:

Now the final step! Multiply the shadow to blend it with the texture, and add time again.

varying vec2 vUv;
varying vec3 vPos;

uniform sampler2D uTexture;
uniform float uTime;

void main() {
  float time = uTime * 0.5;
  vec2 repeat = -vec2(12., 3.);
  vec2 uv = fract(vUv * repeat - vec2(time, 0.));

  vec3 texture = texture2D(uTexture, uv).rgb;

  float shadow = clamp(vPos.z / 5., 0., 1.);

  gl_FragColor = vec4(texture * shadow, 1.);
}

Fresh out of the oven! Look at this sexy torus coming out of the darkness. Internet high five!

We’ve just scratched the surface making repeated tiles of text, but there are many ways to add fun to the mixture. Could you use trigonometry or noise functions? Play with color? Text position? Or even better, do something with the vertex shader. The sky’s the limit! I encourage you to explore this and have fun with it.

Oh! And don’t forget to share it with me on Twitter. If you got any questions or suggestions, let me know.

Hope you learned something new. Till next time!

References and Credits

• Three.js
• The Book of Shaders
• three-bmfont-text
• All Your Html S3E20

The post Kinetic Typography with Three.js appeared first on Codrops.

from Codrops https://tympanus.net/codrops/2020/06/02/kinetic-typography-with-three-js/

from Stories by Jared M. Spool on Medium https://medium.com/creating-a-ux-strategy-playbook/why-ux-outcomes-make-better-goals-than-business-outcomes-3bacaae23510?source=rss-b90ef6212176——2