Businesses learn how to get help from Yelp

If you find yourself winning money on craps at Ellis Island this weekend, thank Yelp.

The casino once closed its craps tables on weekend nights, but after a guest complained about the policy in an online review, Ellis Island re-evaluated the situation and decided to keep the tables open until at least midnight.

The casino on Thursday evening hosted a Yelp town hall for small-business owners to discuss best practices when it comes to dealing with online reviews.

The Las Vegas town hall is the third in a nationwide series Yelp launched to help small-business owners be proactive about their online reputations. The site allows businesses to register accounts, add photos, and post deals, discounts and check-in offers.

Ellis Island garners 4,000 views a month on Yelp, said Michael Galatte, the company's social media specialist. The casino is one of thousands of Las Vegas businesses inspiring online conversations. Some reviews are effusive; others drip with vitriol.

If business owners opt out of the conversation, it carries on without them. Some 85 percent of consumers use Yelp to find local businesses. The site has more than 27 million reviews and about 71 million monthly unique visits.

At the Las Vegas town hall, Yelp's community managers, popular reviewers and local business owners talked about the importance of curating social media profiles and addressing negative feedback.

"The worst thing you can do is be super defensive," said Misti Yang, who manages the Las Vegas community for Yelp. "The best you can do is say, 'Thank you.' "

New businesses like The Birthday Suit, a waxing spa that opened last year, and Paint and Party, which launched six month ago, have embraced social media sites, deal-of-the-day offers and other online marketing avenues as a means of getting their names in front of potential customers.

"This is probably the best time to open a business, because there's no way we could have afforded the advertising," Paint and Party owner Donna Friese said.

Other business owners at the town hall weren't so sure the time needed to keep up appearances online is worth it.

"I don't know if I want to be on the Internet every five minutes," Stake Out Bar and Grill owner Bill Devlin said.

Devlin has a website and Facebook account for his Buffalo Bills team bar on the corner of Tropicana Avenue and Maryland Parkway. He has in the past offered a Groupon deal, but would rather cultivate customers in the neighborhood face to face.

Maybe Devlin is onto something. Darnell Holloway, Yelp's manager of local business outreach, said developing a solid online reputation "starts in the offline world with great customer service."

Contact reporter Caitlin McGarry at
cmcgarry@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273.