diff --git a/more_itertools/more.py b/more_itertools/more.py
index <HASH>..<HASH> 100644
--- a/more_itertools/more.py
+++ b/more_itertools/more.py
@@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ def always_iterable(item):
     """
     if item is None:
         item = ()
-    string_types = unicode, str
+    string_types = unicode, bytes
     if isinstance(item, string_types) or not hasattr(item, '__iter__'):
         item = item,
     return item
Update string_types to honor bytes as iterable on Python 3