How I Won an iPad Pro for Free

Yeah, that's right, I won a 128GB iPad Pro for FREE! However, there is no such thing as a free iPad. I put in a lot of work into connecting with people to help me out. 

In June 2017, my family went on vacation to Hawaii. One day my mom had me look up things to do and I found the Byodo-In Temple to have good reviews. So we packed everyone into the car and drove to the place that would end up sending me an iPad. 

We wandered around taking pictures. There is a small building off to the right of the temple that was your typical gift shop and snack bar, but it was closed. My dad and brother were sitting there and I went over to join them when I saw an 8.5"x 11" piece of paper taped to the wall explaining a Facebook contest to win a free iPad. Essentially, all you needed was the most likes on your Facebook photo. Easy, right? 

I spent our remaining time there taking a bunch of photos from different angles to give me options to choose from later. 

The above photo is what I ended up entering in the contest. It's by no means perfect. Looking at it now, I wish I had crouched down further so the branches hanging down wouldn't reach so far. I mostly wanted a photo from a different angle than everyone else. But overall, it didn't matter how good the photo was. It mattered how many friends you had. 

So I posted it to the temple's Facebook page and shared it so my friends could like it. This was the start of something crazy. 

For most of the contest, I was neck and neck with another guy and could see how many likes he had the entire time. Meanwhile, I was sharing this with my friends and coworkers who were sharing it with their friends and keeping me in the top 2. I went up to strangers at lunch and asked if they had Facebook accounts and a couple minutes to help me out. I swiped right on all of my Tinder matches and sent them all the link. I printed a flyer for my mom to pass around at her work. I paid my younger brother to share it with his friends. I was doing everything to get likes. 

The contest did have some issues with their marketing. The physical advertisement I saw at the temple showed a different end time than their online posting about it. I actually called the temple to see when they were ending it to know when I could end my excessive networking. The girl on the phone said her manager wasn't there and she didn't know. That meant that I kept working on it even when it had already ended. 

Towards the end, I sent a message to each person in the contest who had less likes than me. It was something along the lines of, "Hey! I saw you're also in the contest run by Byodo-In Temple and was wondering if you could like my picture to help me out! I'm in 2nd place!" Some of them actually liked my picture. If they were 200+ likes away from winning, chances are they weren't trying very hard to win. 

The final night I stayed up and any time one of my friends on Facebook would show up as active, I would message them asking if they could help me out. Some of them didn't even respond because they thought I had been hacked but others were more than happy to help. By that point, my thumb was sore from scrolling to refresh the page on my phone so much. 

I was extremely tired the next day and fell asleep on the living room floor. When I woke up, I had lines from a decorative pillow on half my face and a notification that they had posted the winner. 

I had won the iPad with 341 likes. I actually ended up with 500+ likes due to their miscommunication about the end, but I was still extremely satisfied with the results. 

When my iPad arrived and I took it out of its box, it had an engraving on the back. 

If you can't read that it says, "Eternal Resorts" with their website. That's right. It's a memorial service. A funeral home. A place to lay your loved ones forever. 

And I had no intention of dying anytime soon so I promptly found someone willing to laser engrave over it for me. 

Winning an iPad was by no means easy. What it showed me was that I have an incredible group of people supporting me and rooting for me to succeed. In order to win, you have to be different and willing to talk to anyone.