(Update on November 14, 2021 at 9:00AM PT: This blog post was published in 2018. For up-to-date information, please visit our Instagram Stories page.)

Looking to step up your Instagram Stories game? Follow this creative guide inspired by Facebook's Creative Shop and unlock more ways to share your business with the world. From rainbow text to eraser magic, there are dozens of creative tricks for your business to uncover and enjoy. You just have to look for them.

So get your phone out and let's explore some secret hacks (and not-so-secret product features) for your business to play with on Instagram.

It's time to ditch the default color tray and find the exact shade to tell your story. Tap the color eyedropper to match your font color to an existing color in your photo or video.

Tip: The eyedropper tool comes in handy when you have a lot of text put in.

No, that person isn't painstakingly making each letter a different color. There's a hack for that! To impress customers with rainbow gradient text, you'll first need to select all text and have two fingers ready.

Finger One: Tap and hold down any color.

Finger Two: Tap and hold the blue text selector line.

Ready? Now drag both fingers at the same speed and...boom! Same old text in all new rainbow hues.

If you want a block color but don't want to use the brush tool to fill it in manually, then don't worry, you don't have to. Access a full-screen color effect by holding your finger down for a few seconds to make the whole screen one color.

Tip: The marker brush will give you opaque color, while the chisel tip is best to use for a semi-transparent effect.

Use this trick to make a post that's strictly text. Or, combine this hack with the eraser tool to reveal something in your text or video over a series of frames.

Bonus tip: Save, save, save. Create your masterpiece piece-by-piece, saving every step to your camera roll along the way, before you upload the full collection.

Did you know you can turn Live photos into Boomerangs at the touch of a screen? To bring your photos to life, first you'll need to open the camera and switch on Live Mode, then take a photo of any moving object. Next, upload the photo to your story. Once it's uploaded, hold down on the photo with one finger to trigger a conversion to Boomerang. Ta-da!

Tip: Keep Live Mode on for easier Boomerang access always.

Just like In-N-Out (@innout) or Shake Shack (@shakeshack), the Boomerang app also has a secret menu. There's a special four finger tap needed to get there, but once you're in you'll access additional features that make for extra pretty infinite loops.

To get to the secret menu, open the Boomerang app and tap four times with four fingers. Once you're there, you'll want to change these settings:

• Resolution: 1080p

• Boomerang Mode: Forward and Back (pause)

• Frame Count: 3

• Long Capture Frame Count: 25fps

These settings not only give you more frames, it will also add a frame at the beginning and end to make your loops look smoother—giving you longer movement than the native Boomerang experience in stories.

Designed to elevate the visual experience of storytelling, Instagram Stories is changing the way creators, brands and people connect with the world on Instagram. By expanding the creative repertoire of our community through tools like stickers, emojis, interactive polling and so much more, we're continuing to elevate and evolve what it means to create for mobile.

So what are you waiting for? Try out Instagram Stories today and let your business tap into its endless creative possibilities.