Designer Jewelry Gems

Are you an avid beader? Then you need to check out BeadHuddle.com

BeadHuddle.com is not just a beading forum, or a beading directory, or a site where you can watch “how to” do beading videos, or a place where you chat live with dozens of other beading enthusiasts, or an online beading community, or an online beading gallery, or a site where you can find great beading articles … it’s all of this and more!

BeadHuddle.com is a social networking site for everyone who loves beading. It’s kind of like a facebook.com for people who love beading.

It was founded by a home-based online publishing company that put out an electronic book (e-book) about beading, “The Complete Bead Guide” in 2005. Earlier this year, they ran a survey amongst its customers and discovered that, despite the fact that most survey respondents were not highly experienced computer users, most expressed a great desire to participate in an online community where they could communicate with other beading enthusiasts and share their passion and knowledge of their craft.

BeadHuddle.com members can set up their own profile pages, post photos of their latest beading creations and designs, upload and share “how to bead” videos, chat online, write articles and blogs about beading and beadworking, ask questions, share tips and participate in forum discussions and polls, post comments and rate other member’s contributions, take part in quizzes, post events and announcements about beading fairs, markets and shows in their local community, instant message other members and so much more. Members even have an opportunity to run classified ads and buy and sell items using e-bay style auctions that are displayed throughout the entire web site.

Here’s an example of a “how to bead” video you can watch at BeadHuddle.com:

Although the site is fairly new, the word is already spreading among the beading community. Given the fact that most of its members are not advanced internet users, the developers were careful to ensure that the site is easy to navigate and explore. As members share their own experiences and add their knowledge of beading to the site, BeadHuddle.com is tipped to become the hottest destination for the online beading community.

Apart from being free to join, one of the nicest things about BeadHuddle.com is that it is a perfect complement for anything related to beading. It is an ideal site not only for beaders and beading enthusiasts to meet online, but also a site where beading-related businesses (such as beading suppliers, beading wholesalers, beading and jewelry designers, etc …) can set up their own profile and increase their visibility online amongst purchasers of beads and beading accessories.

Beadworkers spend hundreds of dollars each year buying beads, beading accessories and beading supplies from online retailers. A targeted social networking site like BeadHuddle.com allows beading-related businesses to go beyond the traditional online model of setting up a web store and attracting customers to what is often not much more than an e-commerce powered online catalog of items for sale. By becoming a member of BeadHuddle.com, businesses can participate in and contribute to the online beading community through activities like running workshops using online videos, chatting with their prospective customers via live chatrooms, answering questions and sharing tips in forums, and publishing articles through blogs just to name a few, thus building greater trust online with their existing and potential new customers.

BeadHuddle.com does offer a highly affordable “Professional Membership” option for beading-related businesses which includes several valuable features and benefits such as the ability to create multiple listings in their search engine optimized business directory, a dedicated “subforum” within the site’s main forum that serves as a “help desk” and as a point of contact for dealing with customer enquiries, and other benefits which I am sure members who are business owners (or even crafters who sell their own beading creations) will find to be very useful when promoting their businesses and products online.

At the time of writing this review, BeadHuddle.com is offering for a very limited time only to everyone who joins, a FREE upgrade to their paid “Gold” Membership level, as well as free auction listings until the end of the year. For business owners or those who do beading for profit, there are also some really great little launch surprises to be discovered, but I won’t give these away here. If you own a crafts or beading-related business, just be sure to click on the “Professional Membership” link in the bottom menu when you visit the site!

In summary, if you love beading, BeadHuddle.com is definitely a site you will want to become a member of and visit on a regular basis (did I mention it’s free to join?). A word of warning though … if you are as passionate about beading as I know most beaders are, you will probably end up spending a lot more time than you should hanging around at BeadHuddle.com and mingling with other beadheads. There are so many things to do and ways to meet and share there, that it could become highly addictive. You have been warned!

For more information, visit this link: BeadHuddle.com