Dive Brief:

• Pinterest is acknowledging its usefulness to retailers and shoppers in a big way by introducing changes that make it more catalog-like and useful, with features like “rich pins” that enable pricing, inventory and buying capabilities.

• The social network is actively working to "help people discover great products on Pinterest and drive referral traffic to retail websites,” according to Malorie Lucich, manager of product communications at Pinterest.

• Meanwhile, Twitter unveiled a new profile design on Tuesday. The new “Pinned Tweets” allow more control over how a profile appears, and tweets are stacked in a Pinterest-style tile format instead of the sometimes-overwhelming steady stream.

Dive Insight:

With a social network working this hard to make shopping easier on its site, retailers have no excuse not to take advantage. Companies should take note, however, on how useful the site is to consumers, too. As long as Pinterest remains fun and useful to its users, retailers can have a field day. It remains to be seen how Twitter does with its new changes—dedicated users are famously picky about major changes like the pin-like format Twitter is slowly introducing as of today. The swiftly changing nature of social media presents a challenge for retailers, who must keep up. But every change seems to bring new potential for reaching shoppers.