The positive reviews call attention to the bar’s lively neighborhood atmosphere, its rotating beer list, its lengthy happy hour and the friendly wait staff.

The negative reviews are more nuanced:

• “They have a good beer list, but do something with it that annoys me more than anything when it comes to ordering drinks. The prices listed on the beer menu do not include tax. This does two things. First, after I get my tab, it is a little more than I expected. Second, three beers cost something like $16.39 instead of $15.00.”

• “Between the barkeep fumbling with pronunciations of common craft beers (Lagunitas), and telling us the dark colored ones weren’t his favorite (swear to God), I was less than impressed.  To boot he looked like he was about 23 and liked to fist pump.”

• “Another reviewer is right: This place is clean. Too clean. Let it be known: Stanley’s has been neutered.”

Consumers are a fickle bunch. (Understatement much?) That’s why I don’t put any stock into Yelp or online reviews in general. There’s too many biases and foibles at play, and half the time I’m left to wonder if competing brands aren’t posing as reviewers to sully the good name of a rival company or product.

I bring it up because a Monday article in the Star Tribune proclaimed the increased relevance of social media in consumer habits based on several fancy new studies. The idea goes that online reviews are hugely influential in our consumer decision-making process, whether its searching for a place to grab sushi or comparing tablets. It’s the democratization of expertise. It’s the chance to allow your experience to shape the experience of others.

And it’s malarkey.

I don’t trust the opinions of people I don’t know, especially when they’re liable to complain about tax being excluded from a beer menu or a young bartender’s enthusiasm for fist-pumping or an establishment’s overt cleanliness. By the same respect, I don’t imagine my love for Stanley’s to influence how others feel about the joint.

I’m OK with that!

If I am interested in trying a new restaurant or, say, purchasing a pair of headphones, I’m going in blind. I might read into logistics and specifications, but that’s where it ends. Perhaps that makes me a foolish consumer. Fine. But I would rather make a poor decision on my own volition than go on the opinion of Mark S. from Schenectady.

What about you? How frequently do you rely upon Yelp and other online reviews? Do you find online reviews to be reliable? Finally, do you post your own reviews through social media?

[Photo courtesy Longman & Eagle in Chicago. The postcard was derived from a one-star review of the restaurant on Yelp.]

Having watched her figure out the ins and outs of small business ownership, I can’t think of a more exhausting profession. Between choosing trusted partners like attorneys, tax accountants and finance managers to figuring out the logistics of location and product selection, marketing often falls into last place.

As a dutiful daughter, I’ve tried to help her make the most of free marketing tools that exist. Her favorite question is “umm, how much does that cost?” And more often than not, my answer is “Mom, I swear it’s free. You just have to set it up and maintain it.”

Below is a list of my favorite  tools that are free and/or affordable for small business marketing. Please share yours in the comment. Also, can you share examples of small businesses who do a great job marketing themselves?

Favorite Small Business Tools

• Google Places — Any business that has a physical location can claim their business on Google Places. This service allows you to provide a description of your store, open hours, photos, web links and deals. Also, it offers monthly reporting that shows you how many people have searched for your store and any actions they’ve taken. If you can’t have a website, you *must* have a Google Place.
• Facebook page — Wait, you’ve heard of this magical tool? Ok, so it’s not new, but it’s pretty essential for a small shopping-driven business. However, the magic of the Facebook page really happens once you figure out what your goals are (drive people to brick and mortar shop, drive awareness, drive people to URL, etc.).
• OfferPop — Once, you’ve figured out your Facebook goals, OfferPop can be a huge help. This Facebook application vendor provides the ability to do sweepstakes, quizzes and photo contests. Also, it’s free for pages with less than 500 fans.
• MailChimp — It’s no secret to my Fast Horse colleagues that I have serious love for MailChimp, an email service provider. Minus the fact that it has an amazing “forever free” plan, it’s funny! And easy to use! Seriously, though, all small businesses should ponder e-marketing. Whether it’s updates on sales or announcements on new products, email still works.
• Google Webmaster Tools — Make sure you have Google alerts set up so you know when someone mentions your business online. Check out the keyword tool so you know related terms to your business. Use Google analytics so you don’t have to pay to see how people use and find your website. Again, very well known, but Google tools are free and sync with many of existing systems for small business owners.
• Producteev – I use this tool to sync with my phone and calendar so I have a constant reminder of to-dos and project updates. Free for the most basic plan, which isn’t too simplistic. On my phone, I use Astrid, which syncs the Producteev tasks. This may not help with marketing, but it definitely helps organize the marketing, which is often the biggest hurdle.

This isn’t a comprehensive list of marketing tools so I appreciate your feedback and comments. What would you recommend as a “must have?” Flickr? Twitter? A different email service provider? Please share.

Oh, and, stop by and visit Whimsy’s Closet in Red Wing, Minn. The whimsical and wearable await you and I’ve heard the owner is lovely and totally down with giving the Amanda Mark discount — 10 percent off for knowing me! She calls it combat pay, which I’ve never understood…

By now, most of you probably have used– or at least heard of– Craigslist, the free online classified ad service. Craigslist is widely blamed for crippling newspapers by undercutting the most profitable advertising stream of the newspaper business.

But there’s another social media service you may not have heard of that threatens to eat its own chunk of the old-media pie.

Yelp is a community review site where members post their impressions of businesses and events. It’s geared toward dining and entertainment, but users can also find reviews of things like auto repair, veterinary clinics, bookstores and dentists.

Most of the content is user-generated, but Yelp does sell ads and allows advertisers to post news of sales and special offers.

This kind of targeted, local advertising is exactly what newspapers need more of as traditional large national and regional advertisers cut spending or even disappear through mergers and bankruptcies.

But Yelp, begun five years ago in San Francisco and expanding rapidly to new cities, is already hard at work establishing a foothold in the local online ad business.

Yelp is easy to use and allows you to slice and dice information any number of ways– for example, you can follow the reviews of certain people. If you find someone whose tastes seem to match yours, you’re likely to pay attention when that reviewer alerts you to a new bar or sandwich shop they like.

So in addition to cutting into the advertising dollars of old media, Yelp also threatens their position as the best-informed source of local information.

I’ve found, for example, that I tend to enjoy movies that critic Roger Ebert likes. If Ebert gives it a good review, I’m more likely to go.

What if I can find my own Roger Ebert on Yelp– and not just one Ebert, but half a dozen? And what if I can find my Ebert not only for movies, but also for drinking and dining and getting my car fixed?

Suddenly I don’t need the real Roger Ebert any more, and I don’t need the old-media outlets where his reviews appear.

The challenge for marketers is to find a way to put this people-powered site to work for your clients. Just as many businesses now have a Facebook page, they should also get in the habit of asking their customers to post a review on Yelp.

It’s obviously a better fit for some than for others. The latest hot nightspot: yes. A premier maker of industrial generators: not so much.

One potential issue with Yelp is the division between editorial and advertising. The old media were (and still are) scrupulous about keeping news and ads separate. But published reports in the San Francisco Bay area have accused Yelp of tailoring its content to benefit advertisers. Some business owners say they were told that if they bought an ad on Yelp, the site would “bury” negative reviews of their business or even remove them entirely, while moving positive reviews to a more visible place in the rankings.

Yelp denies these practices. But the allegations illustrate once more that today’s Web is still the Wild West, with rules being made up on the fly. Ultimately, the success of Yelp and other such sites will depend on whether users– and advertisers– believe they’re getting valuable, credible content.