Allen Stern over at CenterNetworks has been asking a number of interesting questions over the last six months or so, starting with the question of whether an RSS feed is worth a buck. Today, in a continuance of this professional blogger introspective, he asks what you’re doing to put food on his table. The whole question is neatly explained and contained in this video embedded below.

Here’s the version for those unable to view the video: “Bloggers are supported by ads. Few of you click on those, and you seem almost proud of this fact. As much as 52% of you use ad blocking software. How do you expect us to eat? ”

There’s a bit more to it than that, but it’s the gist of the issue, and it’s one that I identify with. I’m a content producer, and I’m a supporting a wife and two kids on the fruits of advertising. I’d love for you to click on as many ads as possible, so that our CTRs will go up, the advertisers love us, and they keep throwing money our direction.

Problem is, just by begging and pleading, I’m unlikely to change your behavior in for a sustainable period of time. You may click a few ads around this article if you really feel sorry for me, and you may remember to do it again tomorrow, but long term, you’ll probably go back to your habits of not clicking on ads.

Frankly, it’s ok. It’s human nature. Bossman Pete will probably kick my ass for saying this, but we have learned, as humans who stay on the ‘Net all day, how to tune out ads. You probably don’t even see them when you’re looking at this site (and no, I’m not talking to the folks with AdBlocker, I’m talking to regular folks who have the ability to focus on what they want to pay attention to).

This is a failure not on the consumer’s part, but on the part of those making the advertisments. Sure, we can all assume for a minute Allen’s attitude, which to me is a bit akin to the attitude assumed by most public broadcasting. It works for a certain segment of the audience: “It’s your responsibility to make sure this programming stays on the air.” But there’s a reason why Charlie Rose is on PBS and not CBS during primetime - most folks find him boring. Those that don’t find him boring will seek him out on PBS, and ostensibly donate to the cause. The rest watch Survivor or American Idol or whatever else is on network TV these days (I guess it’s obvious I’m watching Charlie Rose).

There are innovative and interesting ways to increase the value for advertisers on blog content, but it requires that bloggers and their advertising agencies start to think outside the box a bit. I’ve a number of ideas of what this means…

Behavioral Marketing
One of my biggest let downs in recent memory was that Facebook, the supposed darling social network of the Web 2.0, had a groundbreaking advertising and monetization solution, and the best they could come up with was Project Bacn. This is a company that collects a literal wealth of information about their users, all of it supplied voluntarily, and they do absolutely nothing interesting with.

I had hopes that they were going to announce an advertising network that others who had content that was in no way associated with Facebook could join. The most successful form of advertising on the Internet currently is Google’s search ads. This is because they know my intent - they know what I’m looking for, and can present relevent ads alongside my results. In theory, Facebook know my favorite movies, my favorite activities, and in many cases, my favorite websites.

Concurrently, one of the worst performing types of ads are those displayed on social networks. The reason is simple - the content is too enjoyable. Advanced mainstream social networks are the ultimate in a customized web experience. Why would I click off to the ads?

Open that targetting data to content websites, and you have yourself a ballgame. Tailor the ads down to a micro-targeting level, based on what they’ve said their interests are, and you’ll increase CTRs. Simple as that. The first major social network to start offering this to bloggers will be the next major player in Internet advertising.

Using Your Brand with Video
I’ve long said that the smartest thing that blogs with a brand can do is get into video. The response rates on video advertisements, when done properly, are amazing. Furthermore, a video ad associated with a recognizable brand fetches a much higher asking price than any typical display advertisement.

Add to that the ability to latch in captive subscribers via podcast subscription feeds and being able to deploy to a large variety of platforms and other media types, and you are seeing return on investment.

The downside to video is that for well produced stuff, it can be both time-consuming and expensive. As newer technologies become available, this cost is going down, and frankly the bar for excellence in broadcasting has been brought way down in recent years, so that often a few minutes of commentary on a webcam can be just as compelling and acceptable to general audiences as slick Hollywood effects.

As Stephen has been noting recently, it’s also very important to make sure that your video adds to the equation, a struggle for any content producer. It shouldn’t simply be a re-hash of what you’ve got in your text format. Following a few simple guidelines for production, though, will give you another monetization angle - one that’s lucrative for the producer, and beneficial for the advertiser.

Sponsorships Instead of Advertising
Between Steven and I, I feel like we’re beating a dead horse here, but even when clicks aren’t made on sponsorship deals, the advertiser still gets value. Take, for instance, Stickam - a sponsor for our SummerMash tour. Certainly part of the reason Stickam is advertising has to be for the purposes of driving traffic back to their site. That’s why we link their logo in our SummerMash posts back to the site.

More importantly, though, they want to associate their brand with Mashable. They have the desire to not only be seen by their users and their users viewers as a company that can get things done with live video, but by associating with Mashable in a publicly viewable way, every attendee to our events sees their logo, their work, and the fact that they’re doing well enough as a company to give us sponsorship dollars.

That imbues a feeling of stability, hipness, and awareness amongst all who see the logo on the site, watch our podcasts, and go to the events. It’s obviously not a driver of traffic, and the benefits are fairly far removed from how many people click on the link from our website.

It’s another example of how we’re diversifying our income here at Mashable so as to not solely rely on display advertisements.

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