I aplogize, but I spent about the last hour writing up a post on the current ways witness's campaign and how I think that will change in the future. Steemit on the other hand, had other plans and at my post, so I apologize if this seems a little brief. This is now going to be my TLDR version.

Current Steemit Witness Platforms

Source

There are currently 2 items on most witness posts.

1. This is how many servers I have, specs of said server, and how many blocks I've missed in the past x days

2. This is what I've done for steemit or the community up to this point. For instance . . .

Hive account@zeartul has created Hive account@bellyrub and Hive account@bellyrubbank. If you'd like to start earning 45% APR on your SBD ($20 SBD minimum) than you can send it to Hive account@bellyrubbank for a minimum of 3 months. Hive account@bellyrub is a bid bot and zeartul spends most of his time "babysitting bellyrub".

Hive account@timcliff spends his time promoting steem on podcasts, helping out new users in the steemit.chat help channel, and is trying to promote lively and engaging discussions using the #discussion tag among many, many, many other contributions.

Source

Hive account@sircork helped create youarehope.org and Hive account@youarehope. I'll let him explain what the project is below and if you'd like more infomration you can head here

I've been busy! Some great humans whom I love and call friends, and I, are launching a worldwide humanitarian services mission based organization called YouAreHOPE.

YouAreHOPE.org and steemit account @YouAreHOPE are where I've set up places for you to learn more, get involved or contribute HOPE in the form of STEEM, SBD or volunteer efforts to aid your fellow humans in need.

Hive account@dragosroua created steem.supply website which allows you to track estimated payouts of your comments and posts, as well as your top and most loyal followers. He's also added a top performing posts recently so you can see which posts have recently performed the best for you.

The Future

I think witnesses will be required to provide their thoughts on self upvotes, bots on steemit, and curation trails. This will be part of there "campaign" in the future and could lead to the rise and fall of top 20 witnesses as the competition gets more intense.

Source

I think this could lead to witness diss tracks, mud throwing, and smear campaigns, but the benefits will far outweigh the negatives. As witnesses increase in popularity due to the belief they have on said topics can help the developers know which upgrades/improvements to prioritize first.

It will also create better lines of communications between the developers and witnesses. As witnesses with similar beliefts gain more power it will help developers have a clear understanding which topics the users are most passionate about and what changes they would like to see made.

What are your thoughts weather or not this will be the future path Witnesses will take? What are some potential topics that witnesses could base there campaign on in the future? Let me know in the comments down below!