I just can’t stay silent about this any longer. Sometimes I shake my head in disbelief. Sometimes I’m frustrated. Always I wonder, what the heck?

My astonishment has to do with Twitter and the people who don’t identify themselves there. I’d like to say, “You know who you are,” but I’m not so sure that statement is true. Because surely if you knew how hard it is to find out anything about you, you’d make some easy changes to your profile.

For the record, it doesn’t matter to me how you use Twitter. If you want to lock your tweets so that only your friends can see them, fine. If you’d like to use a pseudonym and a picture of your dog so no one knows who’s really doing all that tweeting about Dancing with the Stars in the middle of the workday, knock yourself out. I’m not talking about you, the casual users.

No, I’m talking about the people who want to make professional connections on Twitter. The people who want to network. The people who want to promote their books, their services, their websites and blogs. (And, ahem, the people who request to be in directories because they want to be found.) If you are on Twitter to connect with people, then you have to let them know who they are connecting with.

Seems pretty straightforward, yet I’ve lost track of the profiles I’ve seen that are missing really important information.

I’ve visited the Twitter profiles of people who have told me they are authors and have not been able to figure out the person’s name or the name of their books or one thing they write about. How are people supposed to find your work to become readers and fans?

I’ve clicked through to Twitter profiles of people who have told me they are publicists for hire (publicists!) and have not been able to find any information about their company, the services they offer, or where to get more information. How are people supposed to hire you?

Your Twitter profile gives you the chance to identify and promote yourself. If you don’t complete your profile, you’re not helping yourself. But more than that, you’re not helping the people who would like to know you, talk to you, and potentially spend money with you. Don’t think that completing your profile is being too “sales-y.” People are trying to make a decision about whether to follow you. Give them the information they need.

If you’re on Twitter to network, here’s what your profile should include:

• Your real name, especially if it’s different from your Twitter handle
• A good photo of you. Not your cat, not a sunset, and definitely not the default brown Twitter square — the real you. People connect with other human beings. It’s hard to network with a sunset.
• A link to your website or blog. Warning! A web link is a supplement to, not a replacement for, a Twitter profile. And be careful about linking to a blog if the blog doesn’t orient visitors upon landing. I’ve clicked through from incomplete Twitter profiles, hoping to find more information on the website, only to land on a blog that doesn’t tell me who the blogger is or what the blog is about.
• A bio that provides a snapshot of you who are and what topics you’d be interested in connecting over. Think in keywords. “Living on the edge” doesn’t say a thing about you or why people might be interested in following you. Authors, include book titles if you can.

Did you know that when people roll over your name in a Followers list, your bio appears in a pop-up? When I scan lists for new people to follow, I do the roll-over trick. It saves me from clicking through to every profile. If the bio seems interesting, then I’ll click through to see more and maybe follow. No bio, no pop-up, no click-through, no follow.

A good profile works in your favour. HubSpot analyzed Twitter data and discovered that users with a bio have 8 times the number of followers than those without a bio. Profiles with web links had 7.5 times the number of followers compared to those without links.

Take advantage of the Twitter profile. People will thank you with follows and conversation.