Snapchat Launches Lens Challenges to Take on TikTok

Snapchat has launched Lens Challenges, which are exactly what the name suggests. A special Snapchat Lens is used for a themed challenge, with everyone who submits a Snap vying for a chance to be featured in the app. If they’re good enough.

TikTok Inspires Snapchat

Snapchat has spent years watching its best features get copied by older, more established apps such as Facebook. Now, in a move befitting the ever-changing nature of social media, Snapchat is the one plundering the new kid on the block for good ideas.

That new kid on the block is TikTok, which has grown rapidly since 2016. TikTok has build a massive userbase and a growing reputation by using challenges to inspire its users. They create content based around these challenges, and, occasionally, a new trend is born.

Snapchat’s Lens Challenges

Snapchat’s new Lens Challenges are a play on TikTok’s strategy. Not that Snapchat will ever admit as much. Still, Snapchat has actually lost users of late, with users revolting after a redesign went live at the beginning of 2018. So it needs to do something.

Lens Challenges essentially let you take part in Lens-based challenges with other users. It starts with a special Lens, either created by Snapchat itself or the community, and ends when as many people as possible have taken their turn at undertaking the challenge.

Snapchat launched Lens Challenges with one featuring Jingle Bells as performed by Gwen Stefani. Users select the specific Lens, and then lip-sync along to the song. The idea being to foster trends that will go viral and encourage others to engage with Snapchat.

Let @gwenstefani get YOU into the holiday spirit with our Lens Challenge! Tap on the Lens Explorer when you launch lenses or find in Discover ??? pic.twitter.com/043rgvIEtX

— Snap Lens Studio (@SnapLensStudio) December 19, 2018

Since Jingle Bells kicked things off, more Lens Challenges have popped up. Baby Shark asks you to sing along to the Baby Shark song, while Disappear is all about disappearing out of the frame. You can find Lens Challenges in Snapchat’s Lens Explorer.

Inspiring Creative Types

These are just the early efforts, but the more people start creating Lens Challenges the more inspiring they should get. After all, Vine taught us that people can get very creative in order to stand out. Which is why we have high hopes for Vine v2.

Read the full article: Snapchat Launches Lens Challenges to Take on TikTok

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