Temple University has been named one of the nation's 10 "most influential" colleges and universities on Twitter, the increasingly popular online social network and microblogging service.

TempleUniv — the university's official Twitter feed — was ranked as the eighth most influential in the nation by Klout, a company that measures influence in social media. Factors used in Klout's calculations of influence include the number of engaged "followers" each institution has on Twitter, the number of "retweets" and other measures that impact the likelihood that messages will be read and acted upon.

"Twitter, Facebook and other social media have become powerful tools for connecting with a wide range of audiences, especially students and alumni," said Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr., Temple's senior vice president for government, community and public affairs. "As one of this nation's great urban universities, Temple has an amazing story to tell and social media like Twitter help us spread the message every day."

The reach of Temple's Twitter feed, run by the Office of University Communications, has grown explosively since late 2010. TempleUniv has added more than 1,000 Twitter followers in less than three months.

Joining Temple's Twitter feed in Klout's top 10 are, in order, the official feeds of Stanford University; Syracuse University; Harvard University; the University of Wisconsin-Madison; the University of California, Berkeley; Butler University; Tufts University, the University of Minnesota; the University of Texas at Austin; Marquette University; and Indiana University Bloomington (Syracuse and Harvard tied for second; Texas and Marquette tied for ninth).

To follow TempleUniv for constantly updated news, info and nuggets, go to www.twitter.com/#TempleUniv. University Communications also manages several Twitter feeds that offer more focused news and information on specific topics: government affairs, health and medicine, arts and culture and science and technology. Links to these Twitter feeds can be found at www.temple.edu/newsroom.