Table A1. Coding scheme Aggregated theme...

Table A1.

Coding scheme

Aggregated theme	Category	Sub-category	Selection of examples for the most frequent codes
Dark side experiences	Sharing	Stealing ideas from competitors	What I find really unfortunate is when obvious copying takes place. Recently, I had a competitor who, for three or four weeks on the trot, came up with almost the same wording as I had two days later. (Nina, Pos. 94)
	Relationships	Threats	Well, threats are common such as “We’ll mop them up”. (Kira, Pos. 87)
		Insults	But often also very personal. I don’t know, like how often you say ‘um’ … the big thing with our channel was … because I shoot with Canon cameras, I always say, ‘with the Canon’ and then under every video quite a lot of people write “That’s called Canon” [English pronunciation] and not “Canon” [German pronunciation] and then they also get very … they also insult you, and say, “what an idiot you are to say Canon! How stupid do you have to be to say Canon!” (Dennis, Pos. 56).
		Dubious requests	What I notice from time to time is that under public posts, some strange people comment where you can get loans or something. Of course, I delete them immediately and then I also report them immediately. (Emma, Pos. 50)
	Conversations	Aggressive, critical, or negative comments	Well, I would call Facebook … I would rename it ‘Shitstorm.com’, because all you experience is … you can’t say hardly anything anymore. … I actually find that very bad. Well, I don’t post anything in such a way that it could be linked to an attitude or an opinion or anything else because 50% of the readers would immediately attack you anyway. And therefore I post quite neutral advertising actually, yes. (Erik, Pos. 12)
		Trolling
		Fake posts	Of course, I’m also aware of a lot of faking through my job. I sometimes have to create photos and clips of hotels for social media. There’s a lot of faking going on. (Dennis, Pos. 88).
		Criticism of work
	Identity	Stress	It was a bit difficult to always look. Is there something on this channel? Has someone written me something now? Oh God, he has written something, have I answered him now? So suddenly messages came in through so many channels. And then I often tried to redirect the people, along the lines “No reservations please via WhatsApp’, but rather tried to redirect that back to emails. (Erik, Pos. 106)
		Depression and envy
		Addiction potential	Well, I’ll put it this way, there’s a very high addiction potential, because then you just check again, oh someone has liked it and now you just look at your cell phone and you also want to know who it was, ok, yeah, cool. Joy. Yes, you get these positive emotions. Yes. It’s really like that. (Marlena, Pos. 109).
		Hacked profiles
		Decrease in self-awareness
		Competitive thinking
		Lack of personal contact
		Availability
	Presence	High number of data protection regulations	To be honest, I’m always very quick there. You scroll down there right away and accept it. So, I save myself reading these long texts, I just hope that they have already been pre-tested by some institution, so to speak. (Erik, Pos. 84)
		Privacy concerns	It’s the same with WhatsApp, because now … that’s generally not in line with data protection for entrepreneurs anyway. I’ve now read this new data protection policy with my husband, which is coming in May …. I don’t know, I’m not a stupid person, but I didn’t understand it. (Esther, Pos. 114)
		Platforms difficult to run
		Posted information retained	…because to trace it all back and … I don’t know in ten years I want to be mayor and then they say “Here you wrote that”. (Marlena, Pos. 88)
		User disappearance
		Lack of transparency
		Frequent changes to privacy policy
		Change in platform functions
	Time	Time consuming	In any case, I’m convinced that the effort certainly pays off, but especially if you’re a one-person company, you don’t just have to deal with the areas you’re good at, but you do everything, you do accounting, you do the taxes, all sorts of things. And of course, also customer acquisition, providing the service, all the invoicing and this huge area, which actually impacts one person and takes up so much time that actually, even something as important as social media is neglected even by a company like a marketing agency. (Carlos, Pos. 28)
Disengagement of dark side experiences	Learning and maturity process	Habituation
		Learning to find distance	Well, I think that’s part of it, that’s just the way it is as a micro entrepreneur and you have to develop a strategy that you don’t suffer from it or take it personally. (Marlena, Pos. 113)
		Experience
		Personality development
	Profile and content separation	Avoidance of critical discussion
		Separation into private and professional profile	That means … I’ll say on the “business friends” that I don’t really count as friends’ … I put them on a status so that they only see official posts and not the ones that are really geared towards friends. (Emma, Pos. 12)
		No communication of private opinion
	Social media distancing	Solid offline network
		Conscious time and space management	For me, I have found a way when I consciously do not let this self-employment into all areas of my life, I feel better with it. I go for a walk without my smartphone because I don’t want to photograph this stupid tree for social media, but because I want to experience it at that moment. That’s my self-care, so to speak. (Esther, Pos. 80)
		Social media detox	And for me, I consciously put my cell phone away from time to time, because it’s a stress factor, even when I’m working. (Marlena, Pos. 111)
	Exchange of experiences	Exchange with colleagues	Yes, especially among our colleagues, we do that very often, especially in the area of how far we are allowed to go and how far we are not allowed to go with what we post. (Kira, Pos. 139)
	Exchange of experiences	Exchange with others
	No complete delimitation	Personally affected	Yes, so that makes a little bit of experience and I think you lie, I think if you say that every now and then things don’t get under your skin, I think you would be dishonest. (Kira, Pos. 129)
	No complete delimitation	Weighing up the advantages and disadvantages
Entrepreneurial dark side management strategies	Fraud detection procedure	Blocking
		Common Sense	Yes, through that … the advantage that I really know a lot and I am very keen. So, I notice immediately if there is some message that cannot be true. (Richard, Pos. 58)
		Checking Google and social media results Search for personal contact	So, the possibility always exists, you have to. Verify. Who is behind it? Doctor Google, you enter the phone number and get the information. (Walter, Pos. 67)

	Private information protection	Deliberate release of information	It’s almost a bit created, actually. Not faked, but it’s already just a conscious content, which I then deliver again and again. (Emilia, Pos. 35)
	Platform data settings	Avoiding the use of Facebook Messenger
		Two-factor authentication
		Strict privacy settings	I think I have my settings too strict for that too, these privacy settings. (Emma, Pos. 50)
		Safe passwords
	Containing hateful conversations	No discussion in case of threats
		Switching off functions	… but of course, there are comments, yes I don’t necessarily have to keep those comments on my profile, now and then I just hide them. (Erik, Pos. 86)
		Reporting comments
		Ignoring comments
		Comment deletion
		No justifications
	Conscious response behavior	Thoughtful posts	Yes, definitely, the posts with private content, you think beforehand what you post and what not. (Dennis, Pos. 41)
		Assessment of possible comments	And if I decide to send something critical on its way, then I have to brace myself for something to come back, yes. (Emma, Pos. 68)
		No impulsive posts
		Consciously taking time after a post is made
	Follower management	Checking profiles	Of course, that’s great if you can see that on social media, their profile or at least see the people who contacted you. (Carlos, Pos. 92)
		No contact with unknown people
		Limitation of friend requests
	Time- and benefit-effective use	Time window for social media work	So no, so I always have the mornings where I really say, I’ll take care of that. (Kira, Pos. 125)
	Time- and benefit-effective use	Use of less time-consuming tools
	Applying sensitivity	Personal conversation
		Choice of words	Well, then you also have to deal with it openly and consciously, also with the shitstorm stories. Really go here and say, I’ll deal with it openly. Not to shoot back in an offended or grumpy or angry way, but to take the wind out of their sails. (Nina, Pos. 108)
		Monitor development on social media
		Empathy
	Critical topic avoidance	No negative comments
		Avoidance of posts about certain topics
		No sharing of critical opinions	… that I’m taking a political position or on the crisis, those are just things that I avoid. So I offer, let’s say, little surface for attack. (Marlena, Pos. 119)
	Knowledge acquisition	Workshops
		Support from experts	I have the advantage of having my son as an IT specialist, who does all the work for me, so I’m quite secure. (Kira, Pos. 101)
		Expertise
	Profile maintenance	Checking the impression of the own profile
	Profile maintenance	Regular cleaning of posts/comments	And every now and then I check, about once a year, whether everything is still up to date, I also throw out the ones that are not active or that I don’t notice at all. I keep the nest clean, let’s say so. (Emma, Pos. 52)
	Positive effects of dark sides	Interaction	And as I said, sometimes it also has positive aspects, that there is a lot of interaction and so on, because you can perhaps generate greater reach. (Dennis, Pos. 78)
	Positive effects of dark sides	Reflection option	So that if a complaint comes in, via the Internet or social media, I can respond. So that I can take a look. (Mike, Pos. 62)

Aggregated theme	Category	Sub-category	Selection of examples for the most frequent codes
Dark side experiences	Sharing	Stealing ideas from competitors	What I find really unfortunate is when obvious copying takes place. Recently, I had a competitor who, for three or four weeks on the trot, came up with almost the same wording as I had two days later. (Nina, Pos. 94)
	Relationships	Threats	Well, threats are common such as “We’ll mop them up”. (Kira, Pos. 87)
		Insults	But often also very personal. I don’t know, like how often you say ‘um’ … the big thing with our channel was … because I shoot with Canon cameras, I always say, ‘with the Canon’ and then under every video quite a lot of people write “That’s called Canon” [English pronunciation] and not “Canon” [German pronunciation] and then they also get very … they also insult you, and say, “what an idiot you are to say Canon! How stupid do you have to be to say Canon!” (Dennis, Pos. 56).
		Dubious requests	What I notice from time to time is that under public posts, some strange people comment where you can get loans or something. Of course, I delete them immediately and then I also report them immediately. (Emma, Pos. 50)
	Conversations	Aggressive, critical, or negative comments	Well, I would call Facebook … I would rename it ‘Shitstorm.com’, because all you experience is … you can’t say hardly anything anymore. … I actually find that very bad. Well, I don’t post anything in such a way that it could be linked to an attitude or an opinion or anything else because 50% of the readers would immediately attack you anyway. And therefore I post quite neutral advertising actually, yes. (Erik, Pos. 12)
		Trolling
		Fake posts	Of course, I’m also aware of a lot of faking through my job. I sometimes have to create photos and clips of hotels for social media. There’s a lot of faking going on. (Dennis, Pos. 88).
		Criticism of work
	Identity	Stress	It was a bit difficult to always look. Is there something on this channel? Has someone written me something now? Oh God, he has written something, have I answered him now? So suddenly messages came in through so many channels. And then I often tried to redirect the people, along the lines “No reservations please via WhatsApp’, but rather tried to redirect that back to emails. (Erik, Pos. 106)
		Depression and envy
		Addiction potential	Well, I’ll put it this way, there’s a very high addiction potential, because then you just check again, oh someone has liked it and now you just look at your cell phone and you also want to know who it was, ok, yeah, cool. Joy. Yes, you get these positive emotions. Yes. It’s really like that. (Marlena, Pos. 109).
		Hacked profiles
		Decrease in self-awareness
		Competitive thinking
		Lack of personal contact
		Availability
	Presence	High number of data protection regulations	To be honest, I’m always very quick there. You scroll down there right away and accept it. So, I save myself reading these long texts, I just hope that they have already been pre-tested by some institution, so to speak. (Erik, Pos. 84)
		Privacy concerns	It’s the same with WhatsApp, because now … that’s generally not in line with data protection for entrepreneurs anyway. I’ve now read this new data protection policy with my husband, which is coming in May …. I don’t know, I’m not a stupid person, but I didn’t understand it. (Esther, Pos. 114)
		Platforms difficult to run
		Posted information retained	…because to trace it all back and … I don’t know in ten years I want to be mayor and then they say “Here you wrote that”. (Marlena, Pos. 88)
		User disappearance
		Lack of transparency
		Frequent changes to privacy policy
		Change in platform functions
	Time	Time consuming	In any case, I’m convinced that the effort certainly pays off, but especially if you’re a one-person company, you don’t just have to deal with the areas you’re good at, but you do everything, you do accounting, you do the taxes, all sorts of things. And of course, also customer acquisition, providing the service, all the invoicing and this huge area, which actually impacts one person and takes up so much time that actually, even something as important as social media is neglected even by a company like a marketing agency. (Carlos, Pos. 28)
Disengagement of dark side experiences	Learning and maturity process	Habituation
		Learning to find distance	Well, I think that’s part of it, that’s just the way it is as a micro entrepreneur and you have to develop a strategy that you don’t suffer from it or take it personally. (Marlena, Pos. 113)
		Experience
		Personality development
	Profile and content separation	Avoidance of critical discussion
		Separation into private and professional profile	That means … I’ll say on the “business friends” that I don’t really count as friends’ … I put them on a status so that they only see official posts and not the ones that are really geared towards friends. (Emma, Pos. 12)
		No communication of private opinion
	Social media distancing	Solid offline network
		Conscious time and space management	For me, I have found a way when I consciously do not let this self-employment into all areas of my life, I feel better with it. I go for a walk without my smartphone because I don’t want to photograph this stupid tree for social media, but because I want to experience it at that moment. That’s my self-care, so to speak. (Esther, Pos. 80)
		Social media detox	And for me, I consciously put my cell phone away from time to time, because it’s a stress factor, even when I’m working. (Marlena, Pos. 111)
	Exchange of experiences	Exchange with colleagues	Yes, especially among our colleagues, we do that very often, especially in the area of how far we are allowed to go and how far we are not allowed to go with what we post. (Kira, Pos. 139)
	Exchange of experiences	Exchange with others
	No complete delimitation	Personally affected	Yes, so that makes a little bit of experience and I think you lie, I think if you say that every now and then things don’t get under your skin, I think you would be dishonest. (Kira, Pos. 129)
	No complete delimitation	Weighing up the advantages and disadvantages
Entrepreneurial dark side management strategies	Fraud detection procedure	Blocking
		Common Sense	Yes, through that … the advantage that I really know a lot and I am very keen. So, I notice immediately if there is some message that cannot be true. (Richard, Pos. 58)
		Checking Google and social media resultsSearch for personal contact	So, the possibility always exists, you have to. Verify. Who is behind it? Doctor Google, you enter the phone number and get the information. (Walter, Pos. 67)

	Private information protection	Deliberate release of information	It’s almost a bit created, actually. Not faked, but it’s already just a conscious content, which I then deliver again and again. (Emilia, Pos. 35)
	Platform data settings	Avoiding the use of Facebook Messenger
		Two-factor authentication
		Strict privacy settings	I think I have my settings too strict for that too, these privacy settings. (Emma, Pos. 50)
		Safe passwords
	Containing hateful conversations	No discussion in case of threats
		Switching off functions	… but of course, there are comments, yes I don’t necessarily have to keep those comments on my profile, now and then I just hide them. (Erik, Pos. 86)
		Reporting comments
		Ignoring comments
		Comment deletion
		No justifications
	Conscious response behavior	Thoughtful posts	Yes, definitely, the posts with private content, you think beforehand what you post and what not. (Dennis, Pos. 41)
		Assessment of possible comments	And if I decide to send something critical on its way, then I have to brace myself for something to come back, yes. (Emma, Pos. 68)
		No impulsive posts
		Consciously taking time after a post is made
	Follower management	Checking profiles	Of course, that’s great if you can see that on social media, their profile or at least see the people who contacted you. (Carlos, Pos. 92)
		No contact with unknown people
		Limitation of friend requests
	Time- and benefit-effective use	Time window for social media work	So no, so I always have the mornings where I really say, I’ll take care of that. (Kira, Pos. 125)
	Time- and benefit-effective use	Use of less time-consuming tools
	Applying sensitivity	Personal conversation
		Choice of words	Well, then you also have to deal with it openly and consciously, also with the shitstorm stories. Really go here and say, I’ll deal with it openly. Not to shoot back in an offended or grumpy or angry way, but to take the wind out of their sails. (Nina, Pos. 108)
		Monitor development on social media
		Empathy
	Critical topic avoidance	No negative comments
		Avoidance of posts about certain topics
		No sharing of critical opinions	… that I’m taking a political position or on the crisis, those are just things that I avoid. So I offer, let’s say, little surface for attack. (Marlena, Pos. 119)
	Knowledge acquisition	Workshops
		Support from experts	I have the advantage of having my son as an IT specialist, who does all the work for me, so I’m quite secure. (Kira, Pos. 101)
		Expertise
	Profile maintenance	Checking the impression of the own profile
	Profile maintenance	Regular cleaning of posts/comments	And every now and then I check, about once a year, whether everything is still up to date, I also throw out the ones that are not active or that I don’t notice at all. I keep the nest clean, let’s say so. (Emma, Pos. 52)
	Positive effects of dark sides	Interaction	And as I said, sometimes it also has positive aspects, that there is a lot of interaction and so on, because you can perhaps generate greater reach. (Dennis, Pos. 78)
	Positive effects of dark sides	Reflection option	So that if a complaint comes in, via the Internet or social media, I can respond. So that I can take a look. (Mike, Pos. 62)

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