Social media presence has paid off big time for 20-yearold Richard Rush, who won $1 million in the Digicel25 Days of Christmas Social Media Challenge. The lucky pre-college student came out ahead of 21,000 social media users who had signed up to win the big prize.

Rush, who thought he was invited to the Digicel Headquarters in downtown Kingston to complete one final challenge on New Year’s Eve, received a royal red-carpet welcome as he was crowned Jamaica’s First #SocialMillionaire.

“I had no idea that I had actually won the million dollars until I opened the door to all the excitement!” Rush recalled, . “I didn’t even sleep last night. When I got the call saying I was a finalist in the challenge and that I was to come to Digicel, I was just hoping and praying that it would be this and it has come true! I have never entered a competition before much less to win one so it’s still like I can hardly believe that this is happening!”

Much to his delight, local social media celebrities, dancehall artiste Tanto ‘Real Rich’ Blacks, Bella Blair and One Romone were also on hand to help him celebrate with Moet champagne and dollar-bill art as confetti.

“I want to thank Digicel for making me the #SocialMillionaire,” said Rush. “The challenges were lots of fun and even though some of them were a bit challenging, it was really worth it and I’m glad I entered. My favourite challenge was really dressing up like the Jonkunnu character and even though the police run mi when I tried to take a selfie with them, I never stopped playing the challenge because I really wanted to win.”

Rush added, “I definitely have big plans for this money. Even though I want to go back to school, I also want to make sure I turn over this money so I’m also looking to invest some of it in my family’s business.”

Congratulating Rush on his winnings, Wenise Davis, commercial operations director at Digicel, said, “We have over 700,000 customers on social media and this challenge was our way of extending our Merry Millions Christmas promotion to them by giving all our fans a chance to win big while having fun. It was really amazing to see customers finding creative ways to complete the challenges, while getting their families and friends involved. We are really happy for Richard, who went all out to play the game and win.”

The competition required participants to complete daily Christmas-related challenges to earn points for a chance to win. Over 21,000 users registered to take the social media challenge, which ran from December 1-25, 2015. The competition actively trended on Facebook and Instagram, receiving over 1.1 million page views and generating more than 100,000 social media shares.