diff --git a/salt/transport/zeromq.py b/salt/transport/zeromq.py
index 3045ae4db1e..1d9a4689e9e 100644
--- a/salt/transport/zeromq.py
+++ b/salt/transport/zeromq.py
@@ -532,9 +532,10 @@ class AsyncZeroMQPubChannel(salt.transport.mixins.auth.AESPubClientMixin, salt.t
             payload = self.serial.loads(messages[0])
         # 2 includes a header which says who should do it
         elif messages_len == 2:
-            if (self.opts.get('__role') != 'syndic' and messages[0] not in ('broadcast', self.hexid)) or \
-                (self.opts.get('__role') == 'syndic' and messages[0] not in ('broadcast', 'syndic')):
-                log.debug('Publish received for not this minion: %s', messages[0])
+            message_target = salt.utils.stringutils.to_str(messages[0])
+            if (self.opts.get('__role') != 'syndic' and message_target not in ('broadcast', self.hexid)) or \
+                (self.opts.get('__role') == 'syndic' and message_target not in ('broadcast', 'syndic')):
+                log.debug('Publish received for not this minion: %s', message_target)
                 raise tornado.gen.Return(None)
             payload = self.serial.loads(messages[1])
         else:
@@ -916,7 +917,7 @@ class ZeroMQPubServerChannel(salt.transport.server.PubServerChannel):
                                 log.trace('Sending filtered data over publisher %s', pub_uri)
                                 # zmq filters are substring match, hash the topic
                                 # to avoid collisions
-                                htopic = salt.utils.stringutils.to_bytes(hashlib.sha1(topic).hexdigest())
+                                htopic = salt.utils.stringutils.to_bytes(hashlib.sha1(salt.utils.stringutils.to_bytes(topic)).hexdigest())
                                 pub_sock.send(htopic, flags=zmq.SNDMORE)
                                 pub_sock.send(payload)
                                 log.trace('Filtered data has been sent')