You can be the greatest singer in the world, and still not connect with people. On the other hand, you can be an average singer and your charisma can cause you to connect with every person in the audience. That unexplainable talent is what they call the X factor. Part of that factor is something you are born with, other parts of the puzzle you can learn, and perfect. One of them is stage presence. It is one of those things that make's people take notice, without even knowing it. Let's start with the things you should not do.

Do not sing like you are in the shower. This means don't close your eyes the entire time and stare at the floor or ceiling. You goal is to connect with the audience. This means that you want to make eye contact with the audience. You want to make them feel awkward because you are looking at them, not the other way around.

Unless you are tethered by an instrument, don't stand still in one place the whole time. You want to work the stage. Have a plan, on how you want to move if you are a beginner, after a little practice, you will work the stage naturally. The easiest to think about it is to use stage right, center, and left. Spend about 50% of your time in the center and about 25% on the left and right sides.

Depending on the type of music, act the part. Don't be the quiet on stage, sing your song, and then leave. Interact with the people in the audience. There is a big difference between a great singer and a great performer. A really good example of this is Robbie Williams in the U.K. He didn't do as well over in the United States, but there he is a god. His songs are good, but he is not the best singer ever. He does an unbelievable job of connecting with his audience, causing hundreds of thousands to come to his shows. Even in small events, people take notice when a performer connects with an audience. It's the difference between being background music, and being the center of the party, and people buying your cd's.

Here are some ideas you can use depending on what venue you are at and what type of music. Some are for any kind, and some are for specifics types of music.

1. Split the crowd and make them compete to be louder than the other half by chanting. It can be guys and girls or left and right, it doesn't matter. Engauge them to chant about something they connect with. It does not have to be about you. Be creative, if you are in a bar it could be something funny like Free - Beer - Free - Beer. Use your imagination.

2. Pull someone on stage and make them do something trivial like hit a triangle at a certain time for a song.

3. Pull someone up onstage and do what looks like an improve song about that person, note: it is good to have some funny stuff prewritten for this.

4. Do a cover song that you know they are going to love.

5. If it's a song the crowd knows, stop singing for second and let them sing it.

6. Give away something to the part of the crowd that gets the loudest

7. Play on what they love. People want to cheer for others with common interests. If there city just one the world series, it's pretty easy to get them to cheer about it.

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