Nantongo inspires others to build, have beautiful homes

My Fabulous Home, is a renowned Facebook page where members post about different construction and home-based themes, including interior and décor.

The page was created in August 2017 by Immaculate Nantongo, 30. She is a mother of two.

Before she created the page, Nantongo says she had a habit of constantly browsing different exciting social media pages that catered for specific needs of readers. She then came to realise that almost none catered for specific construction and home needs.
“This was how I eventually arrived at the idea of creating My Fabulous Home Facebook page. I wanted this to be a platform for different construction professionals to connect with clients,” she says.

Among the other reasons for creating the group, Nantongo adds that the group was intended to see what other kinds of stories other people had in terms of construction.
“I was looking at different members sharing their different construction stories that would inspire others to build and have beautiful homes,” she says.
She started off by adding friends as members of the group and later added members outside her cycles.
“The membership is, however, restricted. It is a closed group. If someone is interested in joining us, As the chief administrator, I ask the person particular questions, including why you want to join the group before we eventually allow you in,” she says, adding: “The reason for doing this is that we do not want to add the wrong kind of people who might make the group lose focus in the long run.”

Nantongo, a holder of a Bachelors of Arts degree in Economics from Makerere University, says the membership is getting to 90,000 now. It is for this reason that she got some friends to help her manage the page by helping to approve members, monitoring the activities of the page, among other things.

Not profiting from the page
Surprisingly, Nantongo says she does not make any profit from running the page. “I manage the page out of passion and love for beautiful homes. I enjoy reading posts concerning homes. It is a way of us members sharing construction knowledge,” she says.

Nantongo has also benefited in other different ways. She has been able to network with all sorts of professionals in the construction industry, made friends, as well as obtained ideas for instance on design and decoration. Then, there have occasions where some people have invited her to look at their own homes and in so doing, they request for her personal ideas. “For example, I have had home owners inviting me to their apartments and ask for my ideas on what kind of renovation (s) to consider for their house,” she says.

Other than that, Nantongo says the Facebook page continuously gives members a platform to share their personal journey of construction.
“In a way, this motivates other members on the page to also build. These inspirational construction stories have been so many. I know of someone who once shared on the page that they started building with only Shs400,000 an amount they spent entirely on the foundation,” she says.

Challenges
Despite the benefits, Nantongo says there are also particular challenges that come with managing the page. Firstly, it is a lot of time managing the page. “Running the page requires me to be online most of the time, yet, I have my own personal work to do,” she says.

Nantongo says she is an entrepreneur involved in different businesses, including managing a cosmetics, manufacturing company and a shop dealing in different items such as rice.

Spending a lot of time online also does infringe on Nantongo’s quality family time to the extent that her two children began complaining of her spending a lot of time online. It is for this reason that she plans on hiring someone in the near future to purposely do most of the administrative work. “I will be paying them to run the page,” Nantongo says.

Secondly, Nantongo says that spending a lot of time online can sometimes be mentally exhausting.
“Running an online page is a lot of work. It is like a fulltime job. I am always monitoring what’s going on on the page, approving requests, replying to members’ personal messages, among other responsibilities. It can get really strenuous,” she says.

Nantongo adds that there have been occasions when issues arise on the page, for example, conflicts between some members, and as an administrator, she has had to act as a mediator to resolve problems.

The birth of a festival
In December last year, Nantongo decided to host her first “My Fabulous Homes Festival” at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) grounds in Lugogo. The festival was aimed at providing an opportunity for members to finally meet one on one as well as for them to pick tips from different key industry experts in the construction and real estate business. “Sometimes it’s different to know the kind of person you are communicating with online, the festival, therefore gave us room to meet and interact on an individual basis,” she says.
Nantongo hopes to make this festival an annual celebration.

Nantongo’s only fee…

In the past, there were some members on the My fabulous Homes Facebook page who utilised the platform for exclusively running advertisements.
“It was a bad idea for them to advertise using our page, but, then I discovered they were really benefitting a lot by marketing their products on our page. So, arrived at the conclusion of charging them. So, whenever anyone wants to advertise on the platform, all they have to pay is Shs30,000 on a monthly basis,” Nantongo says.
However, the group has a market day when members can market their products for free.