facebook question

I am totally, utterly facebook illiterate so here's a really stupid question: If I want to post something to facebook so it shows up on the reading page of my fb friends... do I need to write a status update and then share it? If so, do I click 'post it to profile' or 'send this to friends'? Or is the status update itself enough and it'll show up to my friends in addition to my wall?

That site, man... I've been on the internet since '95, I consider myself web-savvy but it's like every aspect of facebook is completely counterintuitive to me. And it's not even possible to test stuff because I can never tell how it looks to other people, just to myself. Argngnhate.