>>reporter: patrick skinner is a former cia case offerser. now he tracks isil online. he says the group's online recruiting is like nothing the intelligence community has ever seen before. >> i think it's unprecedented. i mean, mostly because of the timing. they came along right when social media exploded. so if it had not been them it might have been somebody else. >>reporter: last week an assessment first reported by the new york times times said isil propaganda and brutal videos and its thousands of twitter followers has so far trumped coalition efforts to present an alternative narrative. part of that effectiveness is branding. >> they have an iconic isis look. then they've crowd sourced their propaganda. they set out some official imagery but the memes and the hashtags and key words, they leave up to the crowd. >>reporter: and that makes it especially to stop and especially dangerous as it reaches western audiences. about 18% of the group's twitter supporters indicate that english is their primary language raising broader questions about potential isil recruits in