The YouTube sensation PSY hit 1 billion views today with his famous music video “Gangnam Style”.  What makes this video so popular, and what can marketers take away from it’s success?  Also who is claiming that this landmark could usher in the end times?

A meme has been lurking on social media pages over the past month showing that Gangnam Style hitting 1,000,000,000 views will usher in the end times.  Well it just so happened that today on 12/21/2012 (the Mayan calander’s final day) that this landmark achievement happened.  So as you can imagine people are a little excited about the coincidence.  Doomsday conspiracies aside though, there are some serious things to take away from this music video for the serious social media marketer.

As we have mentioned before on this blog, video will account for 90% of online searches in 2013. So having a solid and effective plan for video marketing via social media is going to be of the utmost importance this year.  Read this fantastic break down from Searchenginewatch.com of all the little things that went into making this video such a hit.

Alecsy Christensen from Search Engine Watch summarized the hit by saying, “‘Gangnam Style’ is such a revolutionary video because it puts humor and fun into a portrayal of Korea, a country that is usually characterized as being professional, hard-working, and talented. Psy is basically making fun of himself, and this is the element of the video that makes it so compelling.  Many times business videos are taken too seriously! All they need is a little ‘Gangnam Style’ to spice them up and make them come to life.”

We will leave you with this amusing meme about the end of the world!