Mother’s Day—the most popular day to send flowers, greeting cards, and make long-distance telephone calls to moms— is only a few days away. Even if you don’t expect to shell out more than a few dollars on a phone call and/or a card, retailers are more than ready to help consumers make their mothers feel special.

Instead of just displaying gift options, brands are increasingly asking customers to interact with them by sharing photos, stories, and videos about their mothers.

In their “Make Moms Proud” photo contest on Facebook, 1-800-Flowers.com is asking users to submit and vote for photos of consumers with their moms to win prizes.  This is the second year the company is running the contest. In addition to getting users to spend more time on the brand’s site, 1-800-Flowers.com also gets more material for their ads.  1-800-Flowers.com president Chris McCann told Ad Week that the company later refurbishes some of the photos as “Sponsored Story” ads on Facebook.

This is also the first year that numerous users and brands are using Pinterest to share photos and videos in honor of Mother’s Day. Zales is encouraging Pinterest users to pin gift ideas on Zales’ board and comment on them, in exchange for Zales adding the user’s images to its own board and giving those users added exposure.

Zales also launched a “Celebrate Your SuperMom” campaign on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and TV commercials, inviting users to share why their mom is a SuperMom for the opportunity to win a $2,500 Zales shopping spree.

Other companies have decided to throw in some humor with their advertisements. Verizon tried to put a creative spin on the idea that mothers and daughters are each other’s confidants and having a phone equipped with Skype and GPS features will help them stay closer than ever.

Unfortunately it’s difficult to understand what the mother and daughter are saying since both are sniffling throughout  the commercial.

Mother’s Day is celebrated a month earlier across the pond and Tesco, a British supermarket chain, seems to think toilet cleaning products make great gifts for mothers. At least that’s how it seems in a Twitpic photo from @chelseagirl2 that has been circulating online.

Regardless of how creative (or ill-conceived) these marketing campaigns are, hopefully they remind you not to forget Mother’s Day.