Snapchat Adds Halloween Lenses, ‘Footsteps’ on Snap Map

Snapchat has added some new activations for Halloween in its latest feature update, while it’s also got a new lock screen integration on iOS, and “Footsteps” to track your travels on the Snap Map.

First off, Snap’s adding some new Halloween-themed Lenses and Bitmoji outfits to help Snapchatters get into the spooky spirit.

As you can see in these examples, you can digitally dress yourself up as a scary clown, or a witch, among other Halloween activations.

Snap’s also adding Halloween costumes for your Bitmoji character:

“Your Bitmoji can get in on the fun too with new costumes including a witch, princess, a festive onesie and more. Or, dress up your Bitmoji as your favorite characters from Mean Girls or Yellowstone, in partnership with Paramount.”

Snap’s Bitmoji characters remain hugely popular, with over a billion Bitmoji depictions created. And they may well become more important in future, if Snap can integrate these virtual depictions into avatars for coming metaverse-aligned experiences.

Along the same line, Snapchat’s also adding new Bitmoji stickers, which are also gaining momentum.

Snapchat says that Bitmoji Stickers have been shared over 210 billion times, and again, as Snap looks to build the best virtual representations of people for expanded application, additions like this make sense.

Snapchat’s also rolling out “Footsteps” on Snap Map, which will show you where you’ve travelled in your hometown and travel destinations.

You can see the shaded areas on the map here, showing you your expanded footprint, based on your travels.

Footsteps are only visible to you, with the idea being that it could help Snapchat users branch out and explore new areas of their town, while also tracing their past experiences.

Finally, Snapchat has also added a new option to make Snap the default camera app on your phone.

As you can see in this example, the new option, available in iOS 18, enables you to place the Snapchat app where the camera shortcut would normally be on your lock screen. That could be another way to get more people posting direct to Snap, and really, it’s somewhat surprising that Apple has allowed this.

But then again, Snap has always had a good relationship with Apple, which I’ve long speculated could see them work together on AR glasses or AR tools in future. That is pure speculation, however, I’ve got nothing to suggest this is going to happen, other than the two companies working closely on past AR projects.

Some interesting new additions for Snap, which could help users get more active this season.