The Obama administration's new drive to battle the ideology of ISIS using social media is falling short of expectations and its potential because the White House was late to the game, disregarded the work of the previous administration and hasn't properly funded the effort, some experts and government officials say.

As ISIS and its supporters have turned to social media to spread extremist messages across the Middle Eastern region and world, the U.S. State Department has become an active player in the social media war against ISIS.

What Share America is serving up is bite-sized nuggets of video, photos and text, all optimized to be as shareable as possible on the Web. The goal is to feed content aligned with stated American values -- "democracy, freedom of expression, innovation, entrepreneurship, education, and the role of civil society," reads the site -- in the ever-hungry maw of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks.

The group, the Active Change Foundation, a community organization in East London, began a campaign this month built around the Twitter hashtag #notinmyname, which has denounced the beheading of the British aid worker David Haines and other brutal acts committed by the radical group Islamic State.

Just as the United States has begun an aggressive air campaign against the militants, Richard A. Stengel, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, believes the United States has no choice but to counter their propaganda with a forceful online response.

Along with its surprising military success, the Islamic State group has demonstrated a skill and sophistication with social media previously unseen in extremist groups.And just as the United States has begun an aggressive air campaign against the militants, Richard A. Stengel, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, believes the United States has no choice but to counter their propaganda with a forceful online response.

Islamic State’s 52-second trailer“Flames of War” opens with a black-clad extremist blasting a U.S.-made tank into smoke and shrapnel, a Hollywood-style message to the U.S. and its allies about what they can expect for intervening in the Middle East again. The nation that has produced Microsoft, Apple and Google now finds itself playing catch-up on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter with an extremist group rooted in 7th Century Arabia.