photo of Johnny Hallyday taken from the instagram account of Laetitia Hallyday for the 24 heures (swiss magazine)

Many industries are being deeply impacted and revolutionized by social networks.

One of them will surely be the news industry living of “scoops” and stolen images.

As an illustration of this, have a look at he way Johnny Hallyday, one of the biggest French “stars”, with thousands of fans and certainly one of the most sought after by paparazzi, and her wife Laetita are communicating via Instagram (see Laetitia’s Instagram account..)

It is simply a genious “coup” of communication. Why?

They give the fans a direct connection  with their idol, they offer them pieces of intimacy, fans have a direct interaction, they can “talk” directly to the star, and they are rewarded by being directly adressed to, even thanked, given love. By seing Johnny communicating “intimately” (it’s a public account, so the notion of intimacy is relative) with his wife, people can dive directly into the couple’s privacy, a bit of what they are looking for with magazines like “Closer”, etc..

In this way, the couple takes back the control of their communication.

Recently, when rumors said that Johnny had to interrupt his holidays for health problems, people turned to Instagram to get news… but newspapers, too, as witnesses the above picture of a swiss magazine, showing the Instagram pictures of Laetitia’s account. Interesting to see that even the print media turns to social networks to find pictures, convokating a higher emotional power.

As an answer to the general anxiety and the thousands of love message received on their Instagram accounts, Laetitia answered with  this picture, thanking everybody and giving love:

On her feed, you can see pictures of her husband, of their daughters, their friends (many of whom are very famous), their holidays,  many backstage photos.
It’s free, it’s original, it’s intimate, it’s true!

Conclusion: Will magazines have to buy pictures directly from the people they want to feature?

Are the stars becoming the new paparazzi?